Send Angel!

The town was locked up tight. Hired killers made it unhealthy to ask questions and most people rode clear of Daranga. But three Justice Department men had died violently in the Rio Blanco country and the attorney general wanted the men responsible.He had a sure-fire way of cleaning out cesspools like Daranga – send Frank Angel. Here was a gun artist who was swift, deadly and merciless. If anyone could bring law and order to the town, it was Angel. Frederick Nolan, a.k.a. 'Frederick H. Christian', was born in Liverpool, England and was educated there and at Aberaeron in Wales. He decided early in life to become a writer, but it was some thirty years before he got around to achieving his ambition. His first book was The Life and Death of John Henry Tunstall, and it established him as an authority on the history of the American frontier. Later he founded The English Westerners' Society. In addition to the much-loved Frank Angel westerns, Fred also wrote five entries in the popular Sudden series started by Oliver Strange. Among his numerous non-western novels is the best-selling The Oshawa Project (published as The Algonquin Project in the US) which was later filmed by MGM as Brass Target. A leading authority on the outlaws and gunfighters of the Old West, Fred has scripted and appeared in many television programs both in England and in the United States, and authored numerous articles in historical and other academic publications. His name was Frank Angel and he was different for another reason: his name was that of a real Presidential investigator, Frank Warner Angel (1845-1906) , who was a troubleshooter for the Attorney-General of the United States. He was sent to New Mexico in 1878 by the Department of Justice to investigate the murder of English rancher and businessman John H. Tunstall and a gaggle of politicians, one of whom was the Governor of New Mexico, Samuel B. Axtell. No prizes, then, for guessing where the idea came from.