COYOTE DEADLY by Lance Howard

Brint, Marcus and Billy Chullo are brothers who ride into a small town called Thanody. The people there have sworn off violence which means that they will do nothing to stop the Chullo brothers from doing whatever they want.

They are welcomed by a well meaning townsman who Marcus beats up and the tone of the first part of the book is set. Knowing that the townspeople will do nothing to stop them the brothers do what they like during which a girl is raped, killed and hung from the branch of a tree.

Meanwhile, Josh Dellin, a friend of the lawman in Dark Springs is asked a favour which is to bring in the three Chullo brothers for the rape and murder of another woman in another town.

He is warned that there could be a problem with the father Miguel Chullo who is a powerful landowner with friends in high places.

Josh then heads to Thanody but the people are close lipped about what happened there. Except for Melissa who saw everything and volunteers to go with Josh. The town elder is not happy about this and tells her to go home as she has not been given permission to speak. If she does not the elder threatens to punish her. Josh gives Melissa a bit of support and though he does not want her tagging along she leaves town with him.

In this book the author, Lance Howard, returns to the similar theme of the effects of child abuse that lay behind his previous book 'The Devil's Rider' but does not tread over old ground. Instead he tackles the issue from another angle. Because of the abuse dished out by Miguel Chullo on his sons they think that they can do the same to others. Just the same as the way they saw their mother treated so they, in turn, treat women the same way. Just so long as they don't do it in Coyote Creek which is Miguel's home turf.

And then there is the so called God fearing Mr Herridge the elder in Thanody who is not much better than a bully who rules by fear.

Of course, this is fiction and everything is tied up neatly but not always the case in real life. In this book and the previous book 'The Devil's Rider' Lance Howard has tackled and brought real life issues to the front and should be read by people of all ages.

D-DAY: 6th June 1944

65 years ago the British, Canadians and Americans landed on the French Coast at Normandy.
They landed on Gold, Sword, Juno, Utah and Omaha beaches against harsh German defences.
The men pictured above all played their part. My great granddad in the RAF uniform to the right seated. His brothers Eddie and Alan were in the Army and Peter Thompson in the Navy.
They survived World War 2 but I never knew them as by the time I was born they had died.
What I do know is that because of men like them who lived and died fighting for what they believed in that I live the life that I do now.

ACQUASANTA JOE on dvd

This 1971 movie was directed by Mario Gariazzo who also wrote the screenplay with Ferndinando Poggi.

Run time: 94 mins

Cast:

Lincoln Tate as Acquasanta Joe

Ty Hardin as Colonel Donovan

Richard Harrison as Charlie Bennett

Silvia Monelli as Estella

The American Civil War has just ended when Confederate Colonel Donovan and his gang capture a cannon and take up bank robbery.

Acquasanta Joe is a bounty hunter who has managed to earn $50,000 plus interest all of which he has put in a bank. A bank that Donovan robs and Joe goes off to get his money back.

Of course, the Army want their cannon back and put an end to Donovan and his gang.

So all the makings of a good film we thought.

For some unexplained reason Acquasanta Joe is hired by Donovan to bring in Charlie Bennett who ran off with the proceeds of the bank robbery. After some water torture Bennett admits that the money was buried in his mother's grave. The grave is empty though as Acquasanta Joe has taken the money and made a deal with the army to trap the outlaws. And we found ourselves wondering how this piece of the storyline worked as Joe couldn't have got the money from the coffin without Bennett knowing.

Anyway to cut a long story short Donovan and his gang find an empty coffin, ambush the cavalry who are about to hang Bennett who hangs anyway. The gang fall out and Acquasanta Joe teams up with Donovan to dispose of the rest of the gang. Joe takes on a cannon with a bow and arrow. Donovan escapes and Joe finishes up with the girl.

And the cavalry never turn up in the nick of time.

Most of the actors are a bit cardboardy and wooden and only Ty Hardin looked as though he was enjoying himself.

Some of the scenes go on for too long as though the actors are waiting to find out what they have to do next.

The film is also irritating for bad voice synch.

Marcello Giombini's music doesn't help either.

Not the best advert for spaghetti westerns but it only cost a £1 from a charity shop.

Not on our recommended list.

GREENFINGERS on dvd

Written and directed by Joel Hershman this 2000 movie stars:

Clive Owen as Colin Briggs

Helen Mirren as Georgina Woodhouse

David Kelly as Fergus Wilks

Warren Clarke as Governor Hodge

Danny Dyer as Tony

Adam Fogarty as Raw

Paterson Joseph as Jimmy

Natasha Little as Primrose Woodhouse

Okay so it's not a western but a film about gardening. Not kidding this film is about plants and gardening.

It is based on the real story about the inmates of Her Majesty's Prison Leyhill.

Colin Briggs is sent to a minimum security prison to finish his sentence for murder and be put up for parole. He shares a cell with the elderly but wise Fergus Wilks who is in for killing three of his wives but knows that he will never leave prison as he has cancer.

For Christmas Fergus gives Colin a packet of Viola seeds that Colin plants close to the football pitch. Come the spring they have grown and the Governor is so impressed because plants like that have never grown in the prison grounds before.

As a result the prisoners become gardeners and their garden comes to the notice of the prominent garden expert Georgina Woodhouse. She employs the prisoners as a gardening team for one of her own projects.

Colin is given parole but breaks it so that he can get back into prison to lead a team that enters a display at the Hampton Court Garden Show. Their entry wins them an audience with the Queen because she thought that 'they had been robbed.'

This is really a wonderful film and should be better known. Clive Owen who we knew from 'Sin City' and 'Shoot 'Em Up' shows another side to his acting and impressed.

None of us could believe that we could enjoy a film so much about gardening but we did. It was shown on BBC One last night but I've had to order the dvd as I want it in my collection.

In the following years the prison did exhibit again winning silver and gold medals before winning the prestigious Tudor Rose Award.

POSEIDON SMITH:VENGEANCE IS MINE by Jack Giles

I hold my hands up and admit that I have never read a Jack Giles book.
Until the other day that is.
When it's revision time it's not that easy to take out time to read but by the end of half-term I thought that I should take a break.
'Poseidon Smith:Vengeance Is Mine' was Jack Giles first book published in 1984 by Robert Hale.
The first few chapters follows three violent men who are released from prison after a ten year prison sentence. I got to know these three so well that I disliked them. All they want to do is kill the man who ran off with the proceeds of a robbery and left them to rot in the prison.
The book moves from them to the quiet town of Ruskin, Texas and the happy event that is taking place. The preacher's sister, Andromeda, is about to get engaged to the local rancher - except that the rancher is not all that he makes out to be.
The Sunday School children are to be given a treat and are being shown how a big ranch works.
All arranged by the preacher, Poseidon Smith, who manages to bring people around to doing things that he suggests by making them think that they thought of the idea in the first place.
And Poseidon Smith talks like a preacher and, I think, is what attracted me to this character.
The mood of the book changes and it disturbed me.
The outlaws arrive and a shoot out comes about as they try to escape and caught in the middle are the Sunday School children. There are casualties on all sides and that included the children. I didn't expect that and I don't know if anyone has done that before.
Stung by the tragedy Poseidon Smith struggles with his faith and blames himself. Armed with an ancient pepper pot pistol he hunts the killers down but he does not know until the end just who he is going to face.
The book reads like a film and I could 'see' it all happening.
I asked the author why he included the scene that disturbed me.
"Reality. Back at the time when when Texas was fighting to be free of Mexican rule there was an incident in Missouri. The Mormons had populated an area called Haun's Mill and most people resented the presence of these 'Chosen People' so they took matters into their own hands. They didn't care who they killed in that massacre - men, women and children were fair game. In 'Poseidon Smith' the attitude of the outlaws is 'if it moves kill it' and, in real life, as you see on the news children are the casualties of war.
I don't know what was in my mind when I wrote the book but I would guess that I was thinking something like that at the time. Couple that with this thought - what would have broken Poseidon Smith's faith?"
Despite it all I found this book to be, well, things stick in my mind. That has to be a good thing.

WILD WEST MONDAY: Guest Blog by JACK GILES

Wild West Monday is here and I have my Maths GCSE later this morning and I can't sleep.
Well, that's teenage life for you but to the point. We asked Jack Giles why the western genre is so important to him.

"It would be easy to say that the western takes me back to my younger years but that is what it does.
What westerns do is take the reader back to a time that was while, at the same time, it is a world that can be escaped into. There are a number of things that are happening in the world today that are reflected in what people are reading bookwise.
The western covers a period of time that stretches from the end of the American Civil War to about the turn of the century - the 20th century. It was a hard time with people trying to recover from the war and cope with the peace. Many had to uproot themselves or were uprooted by change and build a new life in a hostile and violent country.
It was also a time when myths and legends were born with figures like Billy The Kid and Wyatt Earp.
All this against a background of cattle drives, farmers fighting to make a living and the rise of the bounty hunter. A harsh time when survival was the biggest prize.
All these elements play their part in the fictional west.
You can go to a movie and come out feeling like John Wayne but a book can take you to places you've never been. Books give you characters that you can relate to in a way that movies cannot. Unlike movies the heroes in books are not larger than life they are more human and find themselves caught up in situations that seem to be against them.
It doesn't matter whether you read Black Horse Westerns or the latest in Jon Sharpe's 'The Trailsman' series it is all good escapism.
Many books are available at local libraries or on Ebay. More importantly books should be available in bookstores and supermarkets - but when will the paperback publishers realise that.
Surely by now they should be realising that in the time of a credit crunch no one wants to read the latest adventure of a Shopaholic. Or that they are publishing books that just sit on the shelves.
Time to bring back westerns and with the growing interest in them it makes sense to put books out into the hands of the reading public."

Thank you, Jack Giles.
Later today I will be putting up a review of a book I read during half-term.

HANNIE CAULDER on dvd

HANNIE CAULDER (1972)

Written and Directed by Burt Kennedy

with

Raquel Welch as Hannie Caulder

Robert Culp as Thomas Luther Price

Ernest Borgnine as Emmett Clemens

Jack Elam as Frank Clemens

Strother Martin as Rufus Clemens

Christopher Lee as Bailey

This is a good revenge movie for the girls.

Boys will like it too even if it to just watch Hannie Caulder do her stuff in nothing more than a poncho and tight fitting jeans.

The Clemens brothers are not very bright and bungle a bank robbery after which they are chased over the border by Mexican soldiers. They lose one of their horses and try to steal another from the way station run by Hannie Caulder and her husband. They kill the husband and gang rape Hannie before setting fire to the house with her inside.

The gang ride off and Hannie escapes to fall in with a bounty hunter called Thomas Luther Price who she tries to get to teach her how to use a gun.

At first he refuses but he gives in and takes her to see an English gunsmith called Bailey who makes her a special gun.

They arrive in town and meet up with the Clemens brothers and it gets pretty violent.

This is a violent film and it is good to see a woman in the gunfighter role. The film is shot in a style similar to that of the Italian westerns but this is a British movie with American actors and an appearance of the iconic film actress Diana Dors as a brothel madame.

We enjoyed 'Hannie Caulder' but I think that we watched it for different reasons.