#24: A Badge for Brazos by E Jefferson Clay

Benedict and Brazos are a pair of ill-matched gun-hands hunting Confederate gold; but when they decide to make a little cash providing law in a small town they find out it's anything but sleepy there in E. Jefferson Clay's A Badge for Brazos.

Clay is actually Paul Wheelahan, an Australian writer who wrote a series of westerns featuring this Yankee cardsharp and Confederate bruiser, as well as lots of and lots of other pulp paperbacks and comics.  This one leans a little towards comedy with a fair amount of gunplay.

I got this in a stack of Cleveland Westerns I lucked into, hard to find in the wild.  A fun read.

#43: Gun Protege by Shad Denver

An aging sheriff abruptly retires, and a town leader with a strong hand appoints an inexperienced clerk as the new sheriff; unfortunately, a pair of vengeance-minded brothers are heading their way in Shad Denver's Gun Protege.

I stumbled across a small collection of the hard-to-find Australian paperback Cleveland Westerns and have been reading them steadily.  I thought they were by a whole bunch of different authors, but several I picked up in a row have actually been by the prolific Desmond Robert Dunn, under various names.

Again Dunn writes an above-average western with a few surprises, including the secret motivation of the retired sheriff (albeit overall sharing a few similarities with another Dunn western I read recently, Danton's Day).

Cleveland Westerns are fast reads but often lightly sketched in; this "Shad Denver" one has a bit more to offer.  Enjoyable.

#38: Trail 3 South by Glenn Murrell

A young man from a poor background in a frontier town wants nothing more than to be a Wells Fargo driver; but when he gets a chance he is robbed the first time out, leading him on a danger-filled trail to recover the loot in Glenn Murrell's Trail 3 South.

This seeming country bumpkin has secretly been honing his formidable gunfighting skills, leading to several surprises along the way.  He matches wits with a deadly outlaw gang as well as stands against the prejudices of the town.

I was happy to find out this Cleveland Western was written by Leonard Meares, possibly best known as "Marshall Grover," the author of two top-flight western series, "Nevada Jim" and "Larry and Streak."

Nevada Jim is a hard-nosed gun-hand with his own code, and Larry and Streak are a pair of laconic cowpokes with lightning-fast gun skills but a very easy-going attitude.  The first is pretty sober and the second runs more to comedy, with this non-series entry landing somewhere in between.

I think Meares is one of the better writers in the prolific Cleveland stable, as this entry is more expansive in storytelling, and the characters more colorful, than in some of the offerings.

I got this in a big lot of Cleveland Westerns and read it quickly.

#36: Jury Seven by Brett Iverson

 A man comes back to a frontier town to claim his bride, only to find she has married another man; more inconveniently still, an outlaw gang trying to find a doctor for their wounded leader blows in and kidnaps her and some other women.  Now it's up to a ragtag bunch of townsmen and lawmen to rescue them in Brett Iverson's Jury Seven.

This is another fast-moving Cleveland Western I plucked off a stack and read on a camping trip, and it came to my surprise that this one was also written by Desmond Dunn (author of the "Gunn Halliday" novel I just finished).  Dunn was one of those hard-working pulpsters who cranked and cranked Westerns and detective novels for the apparently hungry Australian reader.

The "Jury Seven" of the title are seven men who decide to risk their lives raiding a courthouse where the outlaw gang--currently feuding as their leader lies dying--is holed up with the town's wives and daughters.  There are a couple of tough lawmen--also feuding--a reluctant gun-hand, and, as in many westerns, a coward who becomes a man when he has to.

It's a lot of plotting for a pretty slender western, but Iverson keeps the plot gears all meshing and throws in vivid characters.

Really enjoying Desmond Dunn under his various names and will look for more of his work.

#35: Danton's Day by Gunn Halliday

 An outlaw gang wants revenge on a small-town sheriff, but he skips town and leaves a hot-headed young deputy, and a burned-out former lawman, to take on the gang in Gunn Halliday's Danton's Day.

As one might suspect, "Gunn Halliday" is somebody else, in this case one of those many crazily prolific Australian writers Cleveland Publishing kept seeming to find; in this case Desmond Dunn, who wrote under a bushel of names and genres.

To me, this was an unusually robust Cleveland Western, as they are generally slender volumes with a single story arc sketched in.  Here we find a number of colorful characters and more intricate plot, still resolving about where you'd think, with the burned-out lawman finding the strength to coach the younger deputy into standing and fighting.

Halliday finds a way to make Danton's Day pop more than the average western, thus making me want to look for more from him.

I picked this out from a big stack of Cleveland Westerns I lucked into and read it quickly on a camping trip.

#11: The Assassins by Kirk Hamilton

Two legendary hired guns end up on the opposite sides of a range war, and soon realize all isn't what it seems to be, in Kirk Hamilton's The Assassins.

One gun-hand comes to visit an old friend, the other gunslick is working for a hot-headed neighbor rancher who inherited the ranch from her father.  Both are fighting over a piece of land for what turns out to be curious reasons, once the two men are able to compare notes.

Hamilton was actually Keith Hetherington, a crazily prolific Australian author with a fistful of pseudonyms and a couple of long-running western series.

This is a standalone novel that cracks along at a bruising pace and hits all the right beats, while throwing in a surprise or two.

I have finally been able to grab onto a batch of Cleveland Westerns and am pledging to work through the slender volumes steadily.  So far, so good.

#9: So Long Waco by Ben Jefferson

A Confederate vet inadvertently sides with a group of outlaws against a band of Union soldiers, then has to throw in his lot with them, in Ben Jefferson's So Long Waco.

Jefferson was really extremely prolific Australian writer Paul Wheelahan, who penned under a lot of names and genres (including comic books).  

To that end, his speed leaves this one rather faintly sketched in, as our hero learns there is a schism between the more "noble" outlaws in the gang and the villainous ones, with the additional of an abandoned wife at a lonely ranch all having the expected results with gunplay and romance.

The Waco of the title, which I thought should have a comma, is the leader of the outlaw gang, Sam Waco.  It IS actually said in the novel.

For a very long time I have looked for Cleveland Westerns in the wild, a company which published multiple genres in a slender novella magazine-style format for more than 50 years in Australia.  They seem to be quite rare in their original form in the States.

I eventually settled on buying any I could find online, if I could find them lest than ten dollars each.  I finally found a Canadian willing to part with a half dozen at a reasonable rate, and this is the first from the stack.

#62: All's Hell on Peach Street by Brett McKinley

A young man, more or less raised by a frontier town when he was orphaned, inadvertently wins a shoot-out with a deadly outlaw; when the rest of the gang seeks revenge, the town rises up to protect him in Brett McKinley's All's Hell on Peach Street.

This oater from Cleveland Publishing, a long-time Australian company, was actually written by Paul Wheelahan, who wrote hundreds of westerns for Cleveland under a fistful of names (as well as writing comic books and TV shows).

I didn't know anything about the McKinley moniker and picked it up based on the offbeat title alone.  It's an above-average western with an interesting plot and characters and lightning-fast action.

I find it extremely difficult to find Cleveland westerns in the United States, but happily got this for my beloved Kindle and read it very quickly.  Interested in reading more from this writer, under whatever name.