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Sundance was riding in the wildest corner of West Texas when he heard tell of a ruthless land baron called Hollis Bannister. As owner of the biggest ranch in the western half of the state, Bannister didn't quite take to the idea of new settlers moving in on his share. Bannister figured things would run smoother if he got rid of the governor and ran the territory his own way.
As part of his plan to make himself dictator of the state of West Texas, Bannister hired a slew of gunslinging hard-cases and ex-soldiers to run out anyone opposed to him. That was when Sundance came in as one of Bannister's hired guns, he'd have a good chance of uncovering the whole operation - if he didn't get himself killed first.
Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there. Additionally, McCurtin and his second wife shared their home in Ogunquit with a dog that also happened to be part wolf.
McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.
Carmody is, on the surface at least, just another trail-wise adventurer. Sometimes he is presented as an outlaw, sometimes as a gun-for-hire. Whatever his current occupation, however, Carmody's eye is always on the main chance, as McCurtin's tough, spare narrative frequently makes plain.
Carmody's exploits set the tone for most of the westerns McCurtin was to write over the next two decades. His view of the frontier is harsh and unforgiving, a place where a man with any sense looks to his own safety, and to hell with everyone else. McCurtin's westerns are fast, violent and chauvinistic, but the violence and sex are seldom overtly explicit. McCurtin further distances his protagonist from other stock western anti-heroes by recounting the series in the kind of hard-boiled first-person style normally associated with the private-eye genre.
McCurtin's editor at Leisure Books remembers that he was "a terrific, fluent, natural writer of action, and a solid researcher for his westerns and mysteries. Leisure did not, in my time (1979-1981), let anyone else write under Peter's name, but Peter wrote under other names in addition to his own byline. He was a real workhorse with, unfortunately, an alcohol problem (like so many), and without question the very best writer that Leisure was publishing at the time. Perhaps he could have been better and more prolific under better circumstances." For a while, McCurtin himself also worked as an editor at Leisure Books.
The author spent a prolonged spell writing various mercenary and Executioner-style anti-Mafia stories. His name appeared on the first of Manor's Marksman books, Vendetta, leading many to speculate that he also wrote under the pseudonyms "Frank Scarpetta" and "Bruno Rossi" (author of the Sharpshooter series). He also provided a novelization for the cult action classic The Exterminator.
McCurtin returned to the western in 1979 to take over the Sundance series originally created and written by the late, great Ben Haas, under the pseudonym "John Benteen". In McCurtin's hands, however, Sundance -- a half-breed Cheyenne who undertakes various missions to raise funds to fight the corrupt Indian Ring -- became a colder, more impersonal figure, more violent and less credible.
Genre: Western
As part of his plan to make himself dictator of the state of West Texas, Bannister hired a slew of gunslinging hard-cases and ex-soldiers to run out anyone opposed to him. That was when Sundance came in as one of Bannister's hired guns, he'd have a good chance of uncovering the whole operation - if he didn't get himself killed first.
Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. Records also confirm that, in 1958, McCurtin co-edited the short-lived (one issue) New York Review with William Atkins. By the early 1960s, he was co-owner of a bookstore in Ogunquit, Maine, and often spent his summers there. Additionally, McCurtin and his second wife shared their home in Ogunquit with a dog that also happened to be part wolf.
McCurtin's first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil's Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first "Carmody" western, Hangtown.
Carmody is, on the surface at least, just another trail-wise adventurer. Sometimes he is presented as an outlaw, sometimes as a gun-for-hire. Whatever his current occupation, however, Carmody's eye is always on the main chance, as McCurtin's tough, spare narrative frequently makes plain.
Carmody's exploits set the tone for most of the westerns McCurtin was to write over the next two decades. His view of the frontier is harsh and unforgiving, a place where a man with any sense looks to his own safety, and to hell with everyone else. McCurtin's westerns are fast, violent and chauvinistic, but the violence and sex are seldom overtly explicit. McCurtin further distances his protagonist from other stock western anti-heroes by recounting the series in the kind of hard-boiled first-person style normally associated with the private-eye genre.
McCurtin's editor at Leisure Books remembers that he was "a terrific, fluent, natural writer of action, and a solid researcher for his westerns and mysteries. Leisure did not, in my time (1979-1981), let anyone else write under Peter's name, but Peter wrote under other names in addition to his own byline. He was a real workhorse with, unfortunately, an alcohol problem (like so many), and without question the very best writer that Leisure was publishing at the time. Perhaps he could have been better and more prolific under better circumstances." For a while, McCurtin himself also worked as an editor at Leisure Books.
The author spent a prolonged spell writing various mercenary and Executioner-style anti-Mafia stories. His name appeared on the first of Manor's Marksman books, Vendetta, leading many to speculate that he also wrote under the pseudonyms "Frank Scarpetta" and "Bruno Rossi" (author of the Sharpshooter series). He also provided a novelization for the cult action classic The Exterminator.
McCurtin returned to the western in 1979 to take over the Sundance series originally created and written by the late, great Ben Haas, under the pseudonym "John Benteen". In McCurtin's hands, however, Sundance -- a half-breed Cheyenne who undertakes various missions to raise funds to fight the corrupt Indian Ring -- became a colder, more impersonal figure, more violent and less credible.
Genre: Western
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