Hot Lead All Reviews Special

Hot Lead: Most Wanted 'All Reviews Special'

Edited by Justin Marriott

May 2020

Well, here we have another compilation of reviews of vintage paperbacks, edited by a leading historian and collector of paperbacks: the U.K.’s Justin Marriott.

 

Like Marriott’s other CreateSpace / KDP Print review compilations (‘Pulp Horror: All Reviews Special Edition’ and ‘Men of Violence: All Reviews Special’) the reviews in ‘Hot Lead Most Wanted: All Reviews Special’ are compiled from a bookzine, in this particular case, ‘Hot Lead’, which is devoted to vintage Western paperbacks.

The Western genre is a genre in decline (an argument could be made that it is, in fact, Dead). The days when men read books for pleasure, and authors like Louis L’Amour were household names, are but fast-fading memories in today’s landscape, in which a 2019 Pew Research Center survey found that 32% of men had not read a book in the preceding 12 months.

Only a handful of Western novels nowadays are released in hardback by established publishers, and these tend to be by women, and eschew traditional narratives involving white males and frontier justice in favor of narratives showcasing Underrepresented Ethnicities (for example, ‘How Much of These Hills Is Gold’ by C. Pam Zhang, ‘Cherokee America' by Margaret Verble, and ‘Simon the Fiddler’ by Paulette Jiles).

Aside from these hardbound books, the majority of contemporary Western novels are a steady stream of self-published Kindle and KDP Print titles that originate both from experienced, and novice, authors.

So……… ‘Hot Lead Most Wanted’ is a worthy effort to take the paperback Western genre – one that saw hundreds of novels published each year, during its heydays of the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s - and promote its best examples.

Within its 167 pages, ‘Hot Lead Most Wanted’ features three in-depth essays and 215 capsule reviews, among which are distributed 100 cover reproductions in black-and-white. Along with paperbacks, readers will find reviews of graphic novels and comic books. 

The quality of the reviews varies. While a few are well-done, the unfortunate fact is that many other reviews seemed to have been dashed off without much proofreading on the part of their writers. I can overlook the occasional appearance of comma splices, awkward clauses, mismatched verb tenses, and stilted prose, but when some reviews are nearly incoherent, it makes me wonder: just how hard would it have been to proofread a four-paragraph review before emailing it in to Justin Marriott ? 

At least the reviews avoid disclosing major spoilers. And the use of a five-star rating system is appropriate, with most of the critiqued titles tending towards the higher-starred end of the spectrum.

Regardless of your familiarity with the genre, you’re sure to find some gems among the titles featured in ‘Hot Lead Most Wanted’. I, for one, was not aware of the DC Comics ‘Jonah Hex Spectacular’ from 1978 that portrays the ignominious end of that notorious antihero. Nor was I aware of the early 80s series ‘Six Gun Sumarai’, of which reviewer Steve Carrol remarks, ‘Repugnantly violent, especially towards children…..’ (Is there any better advertisement to the reader of vintage trash fiction ?!) 

Needless to say, it's impossible for any publication to provide capsule reviews of every novel in those series-based franchises that dominated the western genre, particularly given that many of the franchise novels nowadays have steep asking prices. However, the reviews in 'Hot Lead Most Wanted' for entries in the 'Edge', 'Gringos', 'Caleb Thorne', 'Crow', etc. etc. franchises will give readers a good sense of the themes and characters in said series, and inform your decisions to acquire - or leave on the shelf - the individual novels.

Summing up, as with Justin Marriott’s other Review Specials, you’ll want to have ‘Hot Lead Most Wanted’ in hand the next time you head out to your favorite used bookstore in search of forgotten treasures.