Frederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver
Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.
An occasional outlaw named Bill Naylor is sitting alone on the range, contemplating what he should do next with his life, when he witnesses a well-known outlaw named Barry Christian fall into a raging river to escape a posse of lawmen. Bill saves him and befriends the fame-seeking Christian, setting him on a path of worshipful teaming with his hero Christian that has a number of fun adventures and sequences of self-discovery. Christian himself has a half-combative half-emulating respect for a legendary lawman named Jim Silver who he worriedly keeps in mind while planning jailbreaks and train robberies.
Verdict: "Silvertip's Trap" (1933) is an interesting concept but a mostly boringly-told western adventure in the shoes of a conflicted young everyman named Bill Naylor that is just kind of muddled and poorly paced. Brand has better stuff out there.
Jeff's Rating: 2 / 5 (Okay) movie rating if made into a movie: PG
Published in book form in 1946, 'Silvertip's Trap' is one of many published after the author's death having previously been published in pulp fiction serialised form. Most, like this one, are well written and are very traditional style western novels.