PICCADILLY COWBOYS ~ THE
GRINGOS
*The first in an occasional series of posts looking at the Piccadilly
Cowboy westerns…
They rode out of a dark and dangerous Piccadilly pub in the
heart of ‘70s London. Seven deadly UK wordslingers with their battered typewriters
tied down, ready to blast out paperbacks filled with violent, brutal, blistering
action. They were set for a showdown against every tin star tradition of the
western genre—and determined to shoot ‘em to dollrags.
For the next decade, the gang known as The Piccadilly
Cowboys would carve over three hundred notches on their combined
typewriters—one for every hard, fast, ultra-violent tale they produced. Terry
Harknett, Angus Wells, Kenneth Bulmer, Mike Linaker, Laurence James, Fred
Nolan, and John
Harvey had never travelled west of London, yet their influence
would save the western genre from obscurity. However, not everyone felt the
means was being justified by the end. The old guard of the standard western—white-hatted,
horse loving, damsel rescuers—reviled these blaggards who they believed were destroying their legacy.
Using assumed identities—pseudonyms such as George Gilman
(Terry Harknett), Frederick H. Christian (Fred Nolan), William M. James (Harknett,
Lawrence James, John Harvey), James A. Muir/Mathew Kirk (Angus Wells), L. J.
Coburn (James, Harvey), Neil Hunter (Mike Linaker), Charles R. Pike (Kenneth
Bulmer), and many others—these desperate men found
inspiration in the filmatic violence,
heat, dust, and bloodshed of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. Together, they
shunned the generic moral and puritanical principles of traditional westerns in
favor of a blood-soaked, nihilistic, ultra-realism splash across their pages.
The protagonists created by the Piccadilly Cowboys were not traditional
anti-heroes, or even amoral drifters with their own personal code. They were brutal
violent bullies, sociopathic villains, with no thought for anything beyond
their own survival and the slaking of their depraved lusts—killing, vengeance,
sadism, and prurient rutting.
Edge (61 books), Adam Steele (49 books), Herne (24 books),
Bodie (6 books), Apache (27 books), Caleb Thorne (5 books), Jubal Cade (22
books), The Undertaker (6 books), Angel (9 books), Hart (10 books), Breed (22
books), Claw (6 books), Hawk (15 books), Lawmen (six books), Crow—the worst of
the bunch—(8 books), and a dozen or more other vicious series gunmen cemented
the reputation of the Piccadilly Cowboys for creating The Most Violent Westerns In Print...
Among the lesser known, but better written of these series, Gringos was co-authored by John Harvey
(who would go on to critical success with his mainstream detective stories
featuring Charlie Resnick) and the prolific Angus Wells under the pseudonym J.
D. Sandon. The ten books in the Gringos
series began publication in 1972 with Guns
across the River. The final book in the series—Survivors—was published in 1982.
Set in the 1800s, the Gringos
were four hard violent men—Jonas Strong, who was damned by his color...Cade
Onslow, a major who deserted the US Army in pursuit of vengeance…Jamie Durham,
a junkie shunned by society due to his destroyed face...and Yates McCloud, a
rapist described as headed straight to hell.
Guns Across the River
begins with the Gringos entrusted
with delivering guns to Pancho Villa—weapons he needs to defeat his hated
rival, Zacatecas, and advance on Mexico City. Finding themselves in a trap, the
Gringos must use the weapons
themselves while putting together a rag-tag army of their own...
GRINGOS #1: GUNS
ACROSS THE RIVER
ANGUS WELLS (1979)
They Came To Sell
Guns—And Stayed To Use Them ~ The Mexican
Revolution—when death rode on a razor’s edge and life hung on the hammer of a
colt automatic. Cade Onslow: US Army Major. Deserter, with nothing to gain but
vengeance. Jonas Strong: Top Sergeant, damned by his color. Yates McCloud:
Rapist. Nowhere to go but hell. Jamie Durham: The needle of morphine was the
answer to his ruined face. The Gringos—four men with nothing to lose but their
lives. And they didn’t count for much in the blood fury of rebellion.
GRINGOS #2: CANNONS
IN THE RAIN
JOHN HARVEY (1979)
Money Was All They
Wanted—Death, All They Expected ~ When the consignment
of illegal arms the Gringos were shipping south to the Mexican rebels was blown
out of the water, they were forced to go back to Zapata empty-handed. Emiliano
Zapata, the deadliest rebel of them all. He could have had them
killed on the spot—Instead he held one of them hostage and sent the others to
hi-jack a government arms train. They all knew what would happen if they
failed, but failure wasn’t a word the Gringos knew. Even if they had to blast
and shoot their way through the hell that was Mexico to prove it!
GRINGOS #3: FIRE IN
THE WIND
ANGUS WELLS (1979)
Three Men With Nowhere
To Go But Hell ~ Mexico 1914. The
revolution was in full, bloody spate. Zapata held the south. Pancho Villa held
the north. Mexico City was caught in the pincer grip of the rebel armies. But
in Reynosa there was an answer to the Government’s siege in the form of enough
explosive to blast the rebels to hell. And a way to deliver it—a bi-plane. It
was a new way of making war, a way to deliver death from the sky. The Gringos
met it the only way they knew how...With bullets and blood.
GRINGOS #4: BORDER
AFFAIR
JOHN HARVEY (1979)
They Were Hired To
Kill—And Paid In Blood ~ It should have been
easy—collect a shipment of arms in El Paso and run them south of the border to
the rebel bandit, Pancho Villa. But in the blood and darkness of revolution
nothing is as easy as it seems. Betrayed on all sides, the leader of the
Gringos feels the raw rope of a hangman’s noose around his neck. It takes the
other Gringos all their furious courage and firepower to save him—except none
of them can ever be saved.
GRINGOS #5: EASY
MONEY
ANGUS WELLS (1980)
Guns Were Their
Trade—Killing Their Destiny ~ Zacatecas was the
stumbling block that barred Pancho Villa’s advance on Mexico City. The Federale
garrison was fighting his bandit army to a standstill. But word came of
howitzers stored in Tampico, and Villa called on the four men he trusted most
to bring him guns—The Gringos. What they didn’t know
was that the whole deal was a trap—an elaborate plan to destroy them. And when
the jaws swung shut, they were left to escape the way they knew best—by fighting
clear!
GRINGOS #6: MAZATLÁN
JOHN HARVEY (1980)
Their Trade Was
Death—At The Right Price ~ When Yates McCloud
tried to rape the Mexican’s woman, he forgot about revolutionary justice. And
Mexican pride. Pancho Villa needed reliable men to help a bandito take the bank
at Mazatlán—The Gringos were chosen. What they didn’t know was that a
vengeance-bent killer was dogging their trail. Or that the ruthless outlaws
they were forced to work with planned a double-cross. But The Gringos had their
own answer to betrayal. The answer was spelled...death. With the word painted
in blood.
GRINGOS #7: ONE TOO
MANY MORNINGS
ANGUS WELLS (1981)
They Were Dealers In
Guns—And Traders In Death ~ The prison was an
impregnable fortress, the cells not fit for an animal, let alone a man. Death
would have been a kindness for Oveda as neither escape nor rescue were
possible. But Oveda’s freedom was vital to the cause of the Mexican Revolution.
And for enough money, the Gringos would attempt even the impossible...The Gringos—four desperate
Americans on the wrong side of the border, and the wrong side of the law.
Fighting was all they had learned from life. Money was all they wanted. Death
all they expected.
GRINGOS #8: WHEELS OF
THUNDER
JOHN HARVEY (1981)
They Were Born To
Live—And Die—Fighting ~ When Mexican
revolutionary Pancho Villa swore to bring his people out of slavery and into
the 20th Century, he didn’t reckon on having a Hollywood film crew in on the
action. But now it is the price he must pay for the guns and ammunition he needs
to fight the most savage battle of the war, and for the services of the men who
will get them—The Gringos. The four hardest hombres south of the Rio Grande.
GRINGOS #9: DURANGO
JOHN HARVEY (1982)
First They Killed For
Money—Then For Survival ~ As the Revolutionary
war in Mexico builds to a savage climax, the Gringos face their sternest test.
In a welter of blood and a hail of death-dealing lead, they must avert the most
vicious and cunning plot yet to rob the people of their chance of freedom. The
Gringos—four men on the wrong side of the border, the wrong side of the law,
and only just on the right side of Hell.
GRINGOS #10:
SURVIVORS
ANGUS WELLS (1982)
They Walked Into The
Jaws Of Hell—Never To Return ~ The revolution was
sapping the life from the suffering people of Mexico. Los Gringos filled the
gap with the two things they did best—fighting and killing. Guns and money were
enough to satisfy their crude appetites, but to get them, they first had to
battle with some of the most vicious enemies the world had seen. And for The
Gringos—four desperate men on a journey through red hell—there is no survival
without blood on their hands and the ashen taste of death on their tongues.
While many of the Piccadilly Cowboy western series can still
be found as used paperbacks (or in new e-book formats on Amazon from Piccadilly
Publishing), trying to put together a full set of the Gringos series in good
condition is both relatively difficult and pricey. However, the stories are
worth the effort to track down if these types of westerns work for you...
Man, I loved me some 'Edge'.
ReplyDeleteMy dad found a #2 left on his bus (he as a driver) and, knowing I was obsessed with Euro-westerns, brought it home. As you'd expect, I loved it and began collecting 'em.
As much as the writing, I dug those early George Gross covers equally.
I had the complete run, but later sold them in a fit of time-to-grow-up. Do I need to say I regret that now?
Ah, yes ... but with the miracle of eBay, amazon, and various other sites ... you can probably rebuild that EDGE series faster than in the past.
ReplyDelete