GUNN #2: MEXICAN SHOWDOWN

The GUNN books were my first introduction to the writings of Texas native Jory Sherman (although Jory was living in Branson, Missouri at the time he was writing these).  Since then, Jory has amassed an impressive catalog of westerns and non-westerns alike. 

MEXICAN SHOWDOWN has Gunn assisting a young lady in her quest for revenge after a town boss has her family killed.  Let's just say that Zoila amply "rewards" our hero for his assistance.

THE AMARILLO TRAIL

The prolific Jory Sherman helps to continue the Ralph Compton tradition with this new novel.  It's a feather in both their caps.

GUNN: DAWN OF REVENGE

This series was popular with the soldiers with whom I served in the 1^st Battalion, 15^th Infantry in Kitzingen, Germany.  I saw this book passed around several times in the barracks, but wanted a copy for my own collection, so I scooted on over to the Stars and Stripes bookstore and bought one for myself.  Good thing, too, because the GUNN books would become a favorite for me. 

Author Jory Sherman lived in my home state of Missouri, in Branson, specifically, as I would later discover.  I contacted him and we became friends.  It was Jory who got me involved in the Western Writers of America and invited me down to Branson for the 1984 convention. 

GUNN lasted 29 books before riding off into the sunset.  The first few books all had Western-type titles to them but somewhere along the line, to play up the “Adult Western” angle, Zebra Books started re-titling Jory’s novels.  SWEET TEXAS TART and TWO EASY PIECES were just some of the play-on-words titles they came up with.  Jory’s storylines and writing were deserving of better treatment, but the book people figured that sexed-up titles would help ‘em sell. 

Grab them if you find them laying around somewhere.  On the rare occasions that I see them while out and about, I snatch them up even though I have all the books already.  Don’t mind having extras.

SONG OF THE CHEYENNE

SONG OF THE CHEYENNE won the "Best Book" award from the Missouri Writer's Guild in April of 1988.  I know this because I was there to watch Jory accept the award at St. Louis University that day.  Actually, he knew beforehand about it but actually received the award itself on April 30th of '88. 

This date is seared in my brain because Jory turns around and gives me the very copy of SONG OF THE CHEYENNE that the panel of judges passed between themselves to read and vote on.  It also helped that he wrote the date in the book before he handed it to me.  Jory's just that kind of guy.

I've said before that Jory writes very well from the perspective of the American Indian and SONG OF THE CHEYENNE is his masterpiece.  It sits on my the same shelf as my Will Henry and Robert J. Conley books do. 

I didn't discover the 3 X 5 card, which you see scanned here as well, until some time later when I began the book.  It seems to have been used as a bookmark by one of the judges.  I've kept these two things together ever since.

GUNMAN'S CURSE

This was a going away gift from Author Jory Sherman in late winter of 1982 as I was leaving home to go into the Coast Guard.  I don’t remember much about the book – I’ll need to re-read – but Pinnacle sure gave it a nice cover.

BLOOD WARRIORS

 A classic novel from Jory Sherman, who writes very well overall, but has a great talent in particular in writing from the Indian perspective.  Zebra Books gave this one a GREAT cover!