#65: Hangman's Territory by Jack M Bickham

 A gunhand comes to a Montana town to help settle a range war and goes against a hanging judge, a creepy hangman, and a murderous sheriff in Jack M. Bickham's Hangman's Territory.

The gunhand ends up teaming up with a greenhorn lawyer and a colorful, dynamite-happy friend for a tough battle and an action-packed finale.

Bickham wrote a lot of novels across genres, and perhaps is best known for The Apple Dumpling Gang and his Wildcat O'Shea stories.  It seems clearly that the eccentric character "Boom Boom" is an early incarnation of Wildcat, who is a somewhat comic figure with an appetite for explosives as well.

This was once half of an Ace Double but has been reprinted on its own several times.  One of the later versions came to me in a holiday book swap from a paperback collecting group I belong to on Facebook.

I read this one very quickly and would recommend for western fans.

#22: Build A Box For Wildcat by Jeff Clinton

Wildcat O'Shea is a cowboy with a penchant for dynamite and loud clothes, but has to rethink his lifestyle when saddled with a couple of ornery kids in Build a Box for Wildcat.

Despite the serious title, and a sober picture on the cover, Build a Box for Wildcat is generally a comedic western, spiked with generous fistfights and shoot-outs. 

Jeff Clinton is the pseudonym of Jack Bickham, who wrote a number of Wildcat O'Shea books as well as other westerns (such as The Apple Dumpling Gang) and in other genres.  If the film version of The Apple Dumpling Gang sticks in your childhood memory as it does mine, you can sort of gauge what kind of novel this is.

I picked this up sight unseen at a flea market with a stack of other paperbacks and found it an interesting departure.