WHAT’S IN A NAME ~
MCCURTIN, SLADE, GATLING, AND GARRITY
In 1968, Peter McCurtin sold two books to iconic sleaze paperback imprint Midwood, which
was run by publisher Harry Shorten. Shorten later hired McCurtin to edit books
for his other low end paperback houses, Tower, Belmont, and Leisure Books. While
there, McCurtin not only edited manuscripts, but wrote books under his own name
and a number of publishing house owned pseudonyms. He also turned his own byline
into a house pseudonym, hiring other wordslingers to produce books as Peter McCurtin—all of which has created much
confusion for collectors and completists.
Paperback scholar Lynn Munroe has done an excellent job of
researching McCurtin’s history and output, all of which can be found on his
website: CLICK HERE
McCurtin first used the house
name Jake Slade for the Lassiter series
he created in 1969. He later used the Slade pseudonym for several entries in
the Fargo and Sundance series—both created and originally written by revered
western writer Ben Haas (under the pseudonym John Benteen) and edited by McCurtin.
After Haas passed away, McCurtin took over the writing chores on the Sundance novels, publishing them under
his own name. McCurtin wrote many of these books, but in some instances he
provided plot ideas or half written novels to his crew of regular writers—the
most prominent being George Harmon Smith—to complete.
While the pseudonym Jack Slade originally hid the identity many
different writers, McCurtin resurrected the name for his Gatling series. These are books he wrote late in his career with
the help of his second wife, Mary Carr—who had previously worked with him on
several entries in the Buckskin
series as Kit Dalton.
After extensive research, paperback historian Lynn Munroe has
established that when Leisure Books killed the Gatling series after six books, McCurtin had already written the
manuscripts for books seven and eight. Per Munroe, after a suitable waiting
period, McCurtin changed Gatlin’s name to Garrity, repurposed the stories by
shifting the emphasis away from the weaponry to feature the protagonist as a
traditional hired gun, and sold the manuscripts as a new series—the prose style
and plotting, however, clearly marking the books as Gatling adventures.
Personally, I was drawn to the Gatling series by the amazing covers featuring Gatling with
different cutting edge weaponry from the western period. These covers are
exceptionally rendered and several cuts above the slapdash efforts produced for
the men’s adventure and western series of the time. Unfortunately, there is no attribution
given to the cover artist on the copyright page of the books or elsewhere. The illustrator
has signed the cover paintings with the stylized initials CP, but this does little to help establish identity at this late
date.
The covers used for the Garrity books (the repurposed
Gatling manuscripts), however, are a completely different story. Research, again by Lynn Munroe, shows the
cover art was for the two Garrity tales was copied, borrowed, or stolen from two Outlaw Josey Wales novels.
While the Gatling books
are straight adventure novels in the tradition of the Fargo series, McCurtin indulges in some tongue-in-cheekness to explain how a man named Gatling works for the Maxim Gun Company—Maxim’s Col.
Pritchett tells Gatling the only reason the Gatling Gun Company originally
employed Gatlin was because they were afraid he might be the illegitimate
offspring of their founder.
In his first adventure, Zuni
Gold, Gatlin is sent to New Mexico—along with a Maxim light machinegun—to
help the Zuni people, who are being slaughtered by Jicarilla Apaches working
for the evil Copper Trust. An orphan, Gatling was raised by the Zuni and has an
obvious motivation for accepting the challenge.
In Outlaw Empire,
Gatlin takes on Wilson Murrill who, after 30 years in a Louisiana prison, is
out to organize crime in the Western U.S. by enlisting the the
Sydney Ducks (an Australian gang based in San Francisco), the Italian Black Hand in New Orleans, and every
Irish thug and Mexican bandit in California.
Next up, Gatling heads into a Border War delivering weapons to the metis people in their revolt
against the Canadian government. Along te way Gatling meets the real-life
figures Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. McCurtin was fascinated
by the hisoriy of the revolt. He does give Border War a new story, but basis it on the same historic
events he covered in Sundance: Day Of The
Halfbreeds and Lassiter: Gunfight At
Ringo Junction.
In book five, rebels have hijacked a shipment of rifles and
ammunition in Mexico. Taking along The
War Wagon—a deadly motorized
monstrosity created by Maxim—Gatling is sent to get them back.
In the final official Gatling book, Butte Bloodbath, Gatling ends up in the middle of a fight between Montana
mine owners and Michael Patrick Kane, the fanatical Irish-born leader of the Western Labor League.
In 1993, Rapid Fire, the first of McCurtin’s repurposed
Gatling manuscripts, has the rechristened Garrity reporting to Col. Pritchett of
the Maxim Gun Company. In short order, Garrity is sent off to Brazil to
retrieve weapons stolen by a hotheaded ex-Confederate General itching to go
back to war.
The final Gatling manuscript is repurposed as Texas Renegade, with Garrity in Texas to
aid a Scottish cattle rancher being terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan and a group
of labor thugs.
As mentioned, I was first drawn to the Gatling series by the
intriguing covers, but happily read my way through them enjoying McCurtin’s
hard-bitten, straight forward, writing style at its best. These are well worth
tracking down—but be forewarned, Gatling
#6 Butte Bloodbath is fairly rare and pricey, but with patience a
reasonable copy at a reasonable price can be found.
GATLIN SERIES
Gatling #1: Zuni Gold (1989)
Gatling #2: Outlaw Empire (1989)
Gatling #3: Border War (1989)
Gatling #4: South Of The Border (1989)
Gatling #5: The War Wagon (1989)
Gatling #6: Butte Bloodbath (1990)
GARRITY (AKA: GATLIN)
SERIES
Rapid Fire (1993)
Texas Renegade (1993)
