Jim Saddler 2: Wildcat Woman

When Jim Saddler first laid eyes on Jessie James, he thought she was a boy. On closer examination, he realized that he'd made a big mistake. Jessie was all woman, sweet as a prairie flower and deadly as a mountain lion.Jessie claimed to be the daughter of the late outlaw Jesse James. She had a crazy scheme for picking up his career when he'd left off – and that scheme included Saddler! Gene Curry was a psuedonym used by Peter J. McCurtin - 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.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.Peter McCurtin died in New York on 27 January 1997. His westerns in particular are distinguished by unusual plots with neatly resolved conclusions, well-drawn secondary characters, regular bursts of action and tight, smooth writing. If you haven't already checked him out, you have quite a treat in store.McCurtin also wrote under the name of Jack Slade. Jim Saddler series is told in gritty first-person style of narration that made the Carmody books so distinctive. Of the seven books that comprise Saddler's adventures, however, four are little more than straight re-writes of Carmody novels; A Dirty Way to Die (Tough Bullet), Wildcat Woman (Screaming on the Wire, with Jessie James' daughter replacing Billy the Kid's brother), Colorado Crossing (Hangtown) and Hot as a Pistol (The Killers). Of the rest, Yukon Ride is particularly notable, in that Saddler has to transport the body of a dead judge from the Yukon border to San Francisco, with surprising results..