BOOK REVIEW: Fargo #3 - Alaska Steel by John Benteen

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John Benteen (aka, Ben Haas) knocked another one out of the park with this, the third installment of his long-running FARGO series. This time around, we find Neal Fargo - ex-soldier and Rough Rider, now mercenary adventurer and gun-for-hire - standing in as a Hollywood extra on the set of a Western film (a nice bit of self-referentialism here, I must say). Another old comrade of his got Fargo a bit part as a gunslinging heavy in a cowboy picture, but Fargo being Fargo, he turns down an offer by the filmmaker to get into the movie-making business full-time.  Of course, he's also a little annoyed that he has to slow down his quick-draw so he doesn't pull faster than the hero of the picture, although the movie star who "kills" Fargo on-camera later asks him to demonstrate how to perform some fancy pistol tricks, rolling and spinning a Peacemaker in a way that'll please the crowds.

However, the pistol-spinning comes to an abrupt halt when Jane Deering, a young and sexy Hollywood starlet, drops by looking to invite Fargo to her home later that night to discuss business (and have sex). Fargo of course accepts, since the only thing he enjoys more than making money and shooting guys in the face is having sex with gorgeous women. Deering has a simple business proposition for Fargo - travel to Alaska and acquire confirmation that her estranged husband is dead. Deering is savvy enough to understand that Hollywood (even circa 1914) is just a meat grinder for talent: young, beautiful, naive people go in, and come out prematurely aged, washed-up and kicked out to pasture as the studios move on to the next big name. But Deering's husband was wealthy, and if she can find proof of his death somewhere in the wilds of the great white north, she will inherit his fortune. Fargo agrees to take on this assignment, although he is reluctant to bring Deering along with him, since she insists she's as tough and capable as any man.

What follows is a great action-adventure story set in the wild and unruly world of early 20th century Alaska. I was especially eager to read this particular novel because, as a native-born Alaskan myself, I was curious to see how Benteen (Haas) portrayed the territory and its people in these largely lawless, pre-statehood days. Overall, I wasn't disappointed. Even today, Alaska is a place for the independent of mind and spirit, for people who are self-reliant and take satisfaction from being in control of as much of their lives as one can be in the 21st century. But a hundred years ago, it really was one of the last North American frontiers, a place where the unwary could be killed by the savage winter cold or the teeth and claws of even more savage predators, by knife or gun or whiskey bottle or icy stream.

The extraordinarily dangerous environment is well-envisioned in this novel, but equally impressive is the amount of action and intrigue that takes place in the story. I won't give away any spoilers, except to say that Fargo and Deering stumble into a situation much more deadly than they'd ever imagined. There are a number of good fights in this book, from fists to knives to pistols and rifles, and of course Fargo's infamous double-barreled shotgun gets a good workout. There is a large battle at the end of the book that feels like something out of the battle for Berlin, 1945. In fact, the only criticism of the book I might have is that the final battle is a little TOO huge and bloody - but of course, that's just crazy talk.

If you've made it to Alaska Steel, you're no doubt a Fargo fan like myself, so I know I don't have to sell you on it, but rest assured, this is another excellent volume in what has quickly become one of my favorite action-adventure series. Pick it up, because you won't be disappointed.

Book Review: SUNDANCE #1 by John Benteen

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The folks over at Piccadilly Publishing are pretty dang smart. When they grabbed John Benteen's (aka Ben Haas') amazing FARGO series, they were clever enough to also grab his Westerns. This includes his SUNDANCE series, a great haul if for no other reason than the series itself is much longer-lived than FARGO.

Thankfully, there are plenty of reasons why republishing SUNDANCE is great. The eponymous character, Jim Sundance, is a half-white, half-Cheyenne adventurer. When we meet him he's in his 30's, already a man who has roamed and fought across the length and breadth of the U.S., moving between the worlds of the white man and the Indian. The timeframe for the book is sometime a few months after the Battle of Washita River, putting the book most likely in the late spring or early summer of 1869.

Sundance is your typical Benteen hero: tall, broad-shouldered, with a slim waist and a lean, powerful build. He has the complexion and features of a Cheyenne Indian, but his hair is a bright golden blond, a gift from his English father. Sundance received his name - his Indian name - after participating in the Sun Dance ritual, The description given of Sundance's experience is one of the more extreme, although it's got nothing on the movie A Man Called Horse, which has a really graphic Sun Dance ritual scene. I've actually attended a Sioux Sun Dance, and even back in the 90's, there was some ritual body piercing going on, although very rare.

On top of his unusual heritage, Sundance carries an unusual arsenal. In typical Benteen fashion, his main character is very deliberately armed with an assortment of weapons from both cultures. Sundance carries a Navy Colt and a Henry repeating rifle, as well as a Bowie knife with a fourteen-inch blade and a hand guard for knife-fighting. In addition, he carries a steel-bladed tomahawk, as well as a Cheyenne dog soldier's war shield and a bow, along with a quiver of thirty flint-headed arrows. Benteen goes to great length to note that Sundance prefers flint tips to steel, claiming that they deliver a more grievous wound, and that with the bow Sundance could kill a man at four hundred yards, or put an arrow through a buffalo. Over the course of the novel Sundance puts every weapon in his arsenal to use, another Benteen trait, and it is interesting to see how Sundance typically uses the white man's weapons for "every day carry", but when he really means business, he tends to favor his more traditional arsenal. It is a cool dynamic, and having read Sundance #2, one that is probably going to carry through to every book in the series.

As to the plot? Sundance is hired by a railroad baron to find his young, beautiful daughter, who willfully departed for the West Coast some time ago in a well-guarded wagon train. The train was attacked by Indians and the daughter was captured. Being able to move between the two cultures, Sundance is known to be the man you want when it comes to dealing with the Indians, especially the Cheyenne. But, his services don't come cheap. In an interesting twist, and opposed to Neal Fargo, Sundance funnels his fees back to a lawyer in Washington D.C., where the lawyer lobbies for Indian rights in the hope that they can be saved - as much as possible, at least - from the machinations of the white man. Sundance is an educated man, and he's fully aware of how bleak the future of the Indian is in the U.S., so he does what he can to mitigate damage. I think the idea that he's not just spending his money on liquor and whores is an interesting premise, and makes him a more sympathetic character. Without giving away any spoilers, I'll note that this dedication to his cause results in more than a little turmoil over the course of the novel.

Overall, this is an excellent western adventure tale. Sundance is a fascinating character, a mix of some standard Western themes with Benteen's own unique style laid over. The action is fast and violent, the level of detail extraordinary. There's a buffalo hunting scene about halfway through the book that is very impressive, and just as thrilling as any battle sequence.

Even if you're not normally a fan of Western stories, I highly recommend the SUNDANCE series. The $1.99 it'll set you back to buy the first book is well worth the experience, and it was certainly enough to get me to buy #2 the moment it was live (and I read it practically in one sitting).

Book Review: FARGO #2 Panama Gold by John Benteen

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After reading the excellent debut Fargo novel a couple of weeks ago, I was really chomping at the bit to get the sequel on my Kindle ASAP. Ordering the ebook at the end of last week, I powered through Panama Gold in about 24 hours. They might be short, quick reads, but Benteen packs a LOT of action and adventure into a relatively compact story.

Panama Gold starts off with Fargo arriving in Long Island to visit his old commanding officer, The Colonel. And by 'The Colonel', we actually mean former Rough Rider and ex-President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. However, no matter how high his star had risen, Fargo will forever only think of Roosevelt as his commanding officer, and we are reminded that Fargo saved Roosevelt's life during the battle of San Juan Hill. The two are fast friends still, even after all those years (this story is set in 1912), and Roosevelt has a favor to ask of Fargo.

Roosevelt needs Fargo to kill a man.

Cleve Buckner is, like Fargo, a former military man, but unlike our main character, Buckner is a deserter, gone on the lam after shooting an officer who caught Buckner in bed with his wife. Buckner is a sort of dark reflection of Fargo; tough, battle-hardened, and utterly ruthless, but there is an evil, sadistic streak to Buckner which makes him immediately repellent. In a nice bit of symbolism, before we meet Buckner, it is pointed out that Fargo has clean, white teeth that are well-cared for, because the last thing a fighting man needs, out in the middle of nowhere on campaign, is an abscessed tooth or other ailment that could quickly lay him low. When we meed Buckner, one of the first things we learn about him is that his teeth are blackened and rotten, just like his soul.

Long story short, Roosevelt needs Fargo to kill Buckner, because Buckner has raised and trained a small army of mercenaries and cutthroats to attack and possibly blow up portions of the Panama Canal. Although Roosevelt is no longer President and has no real authority, he represents a small group of "private citizens" who have a vested interest in making sure the Canal goes through on time. There are also rumblings that foreign powers - namely Germany and Japan - would like nothing more than to see American and British naval powers deprived of the ability to move through the Canal any time soon. If Buckner succeeds in delaying the completion of the Canal by even a few months, it could give these aggressive nations just the window they need to take action on their enemies.

I won't give away any more of the story than that, because, like the first Fargo novel, there are a number of interesting twists and turns that shouldn't be spoiled. There's plenty of gun-fighting and adventure, especially in the depictions of the brutal jungles around the Canal, which Fargo finds himself having to traverse a couple of times. We are reunited once again with Fargo's small arsenal; the .38 Colt revolver loaded with "dum-dums", the sawed-off 10-gauge shotgun loaded with buckshot, and the deadly Batangas knife. Like the first novel, Fargo also carries a .30-30 Winchester carbine, but it gets misplaced early on and sees essentially no use.And again, like the first novel, the Fox double-barrel blows people away with the authority of a Napoleonic field piece loaded with canister shot, but the weapon is just so badass that we don't really care.

This book is a fitting follow-up to the first Fargo adventure, and if you liked that debut novel, you'll enjoy Panama Gold just as much. There's action, adventure, sex, boozing, gambling...pretty much everything you'd ever want in a book like this, all told with Benteen's skillful economy of words. These are definitely the sorts of books you buy as soon as you can, read as quickly as you can, and then you sit around slightly miffed that you'll have to wait so long to get your hands on the next volume.

Book Review: FARGO by John Benteen

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To me, Neal Fargo is a combination of Robert E. Howard's Conan mixed with Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch. Fargo, John Benteen's (aka Ben Haas) eponymous globe-trotting adventurer/mercenary is in his late 30's, a highly-skilled and incredibly lethal fighting man who's already had a lifetime's worth of adventures by the time we meet him arriving in El Paso in the beginning of the book. Like Conan, Fargo is a lone wolf, a man who really trusts no one and nothing except, perhaps, his weapons. He fights for money and because it's what he's best at, and because he's one of those rare breed of men who, unashamedly, needs to be in mortal conflict with man and the elements in order to feel alive. Fargo knows he'll meet a violent end one day, and you know his only hope is that he dies on his feet, surrounded by his enemies.

But at the same time, the world Fargo lives in is one of chaos. The series is set in the era around WW1, a time of change and upheaval, of increasing mechanism in the manner in which men kill each other. Like the men of The Wild Bunch, you get the sense that Fargo is a man born out of an earlier age, symbolized, I feel, by his shock of white hair, evidence of how life has aged him far beyond his relatively young years. He's a man who is, in a way, better fitted to the latter half of the 19th century than the beginning of the 20th. But to Fargo, it is a small matter; he knows men skilled with guns, knives, and their bare fists are still in demand all around the world, and his reputation is such that he can command top dollar.

In this first novel in the series, Fargo is looking for employment along the border with Mexico. He knows the revolution to the south is a perfect place for a man of his skills, but Fargo won't throw in with just anybody. He picks and chooses based on the most profit and the best chance of success, although sometimes those two might be at odds to each other. Fargo is approached by Ted Meredith, a man who owns half of a silver mine three hundred miles south of the border. The mine is under siege by a Mexican bandit lord by the name of Hernandez, and Meredith knows the mine is lost to him, but perhaps they can sneak out with a mule train loaded down with a quarter million dollars' worth of silver coins. Meredith offers Fargo ten percent of whatever they get out of Mexico, and Fargo agrees to take on the assignment.

I don't want to spoil the plot, because there are a number of twists and turns, some predictable, some not so much. There's a lot of fighting, especially gunplay, and this is one of the areas where Benteen/Haas lavishes a lot of strong detail. Fargo is a man who lives and dies not only by his wits but by his weapons, and he carries a small arsenal with him wherever he goes. I was somewhat reminded of that scene in 1999's The Mummy when O'Connell - a fighting man in the same "globe-trotting adventurer" vein as Fargo - throws his duffel on a table and opens it up to reveal a small army's worth of weapons and ammunition. Fargo always brings with him a steamer trunk filled with weapons and ammo. He carries a .38 caliber Colt Army revolver, a Winchester .30-30 rifle, and, his most prized firearm, a custom-made Fox ten-gauge double-barrel hammerless shotgun given to him by none other than Teddy Roosevelt. Fargo rode in the Rough Riders and fought on San Juan Hill, and as payment of sorts for an unnamed favor, Roosevelt gifted Fargo this shotgun. Fargo cut the thirty-inch barrel down to a more portable thirteen inches, and keeps the weapon loaded with double-ought buckshot. There are several times in the book where this shotgun is fired with both barrels, and the blast of shot has the seeming effect of a Napoleonic field cannon loaded with grape, but I'll forgive Haas the embellishment because, frankly, it's just that badass. Fargo also carries with him a razor-edged Batangas knife, better known as a butterfly knife, that sports a ten-inch blade. Fargo is dazzlingly lethal with this knife, and in one epic fight scene, demonstrates his gift of ambidexterity.

The wonderful folks at Piccadilly Publishing are re-releasing all of the Fargo books as ebooks, and this first novel is a steal of a deal in ebook format for $1.99 on Amazon. It is an incredible read, full of high adventure and epic battles, dangerous villains and sultry women. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, and my greatest frustration is that I'll have to wait for the followup volumes to be released (the original paperbacks can be found, but the one I have is rather brittle, and I'd rather just read it as an ebook).