Death Ground [Mass Market Paperback]

Leo Guild is an aging bounty hunter. He is a former lawman, father and husband, but that is all behind him. Now he rides alone. He is melancholy, intelligent and violent; when he needs to be. He also has a past that sticks with him. He killed a little girl. The courts forgave him, but he can't find the heart to forgive himself.

DEATH GROUND opens on the evening of Guild's 54th birthday. In lonely celebration he makes a date at the local brothel with a young "straw-haired" girl. Things don't go as expected with the girl and his birthday truly turns for the worse when he is summoned to the Sheriff's office.

Two men are dead. One--Merle Rig--hired Guild as a bodyguard and the other--Kenny Tolliver--was technically Guild's employee. He hired Kenny to protect Rig while he paid a visit to the "straw-haired" girl. As he looks at the cadavers on the heavy mortician's tables he figures his job is gone and it is time to ride on, but first he pays a visit to Kenny's mother. A scene that unsettles Guild and also piques his interest; Kenny's mother knew Rig and Kenny palled around with a couple local deputies.

Leo Guild decides he can't leave town until he figures who really killed the pair and why. He has a feeling it is not the violent mountain man being blamed by the Sheriff, but he doesn't have many suspects. He doesn't have anything but a hunch, really.

DEATH GROUND isn't a traditional Western. It, like all of Gorman's Westerns, is a noir mystery wrapped in the trappings of the Old West. That is not to say that the historical element isn't accurate or interesting, because it is. It is also central to the story, but an Ed Gorman Western is more of a historical mystery than anything else. A hardboiled historical mystery at that.

The prose is tough and tender in varying shades. It defines the story, action, and protagonist with a lean, smart and melancholy and literate style:

"Then he started digging snow up with both hands, and he covered them good, the two of them, and then he stood up and looked out on the unfurling white land. There was blue sky and a full yellow sun. Warmer now, there was even that kind of sweetness that comes on sunny winter days. It made him think of pretty women on ice skates, their cheeks touched perfect red by the cold, their eyes daring and blue."

Leo Guild is an everyman. He is the man who does what needs to be done. He isn't a hero, or a villain, but rather he is simply a man; a man who has seen much, done much, and lost much. Guild is an example of what makes Ed Gorman's fiction so damn good: characters that are measured and three-dimensional; characters that act, feel and sound real. His male characters are strong and pitiful, lustful and scared, vain and dangerous, lonely and weak--generally all at the same time--and more importantly they are recognizable. And his female characters exhibit the same steady qualities. Neither wholly good nor bad, just human.

DEATH GROUND is a Western that should have wide appeal. It will please the traditionalist with its rugged description of frontier life and the people who settled it. It will also introduce readers of hardboiled crime fiction to a new genre, but mostly it will please any reader who wants something tangible and meaningful mixed into a well-told, excellently plotted and immensely entertaining novel.

-Gravetapping

Edward Gorman retired from writing in the advertising industry after 20 years to become one of our better contemporary writers. Though he writes in other venues (horror and mystery) I prefer to read only his westerns.

Back in the 1980s I purchased all four of the Leo Guild novels in hardcover; GUILD, DEATH GROUND, BLOOD GAME, and DARK TRAIL; these are the only four novels in the Guild saga of which I am aware, while another in short story form exits.

Mr. Gorman stated once that Leo Guild is a fictional character in whom his father would have understood. That is reassuring and indicative to me as it gets me off the hook, for I do not always understand Leo Guild, ex-lawman now bounty hunter. Of all the characters invented by writer Gorman, Guild is my choice as favorite. Though I think he is well developed in personality I think Mr. Gorman somewhat holds Guild back in growth and development. Guild the bounty hunter is always on the trail of bounty yet he never seems to rise above level of being insolvent. That continual flaw doesn't make much sense to me, for as most of us may be broke or down time-to-time, suffering as Guild does, most of us, as they say today, move on with our lives. There must come a time when Leo Guild just has to surmount that last hill to reach its summit thereby to begin to travel in success down into the valley.

This present novel finds Leo Guild again at age 54 confessing past errors and fate to a priest, though Guild is not of the Catholic faith, while setting out on the trail of 3 bank robbers hoping to find share in a promised $1000.00 reward. However nothing is ever easy for Guild and no matter the end-of-trail his demons seem always to continue to ride on his shoulders.

I suppose some readers might not find the Leo Guild character interesting but it is difficult to understand why. At times he resembles Matt Scudder in character in many ways. However, since I did not care for Scudder after he put his life in order maybe, just maybe, Gorman knows what he is about keeping Leo Guild ever struggling with life than ever rising above it.

These paperback novels were once published in hardcover (Evans) and later released in paperback by Ballentine westerns. With two now re-released by Leisure Book westerns, maybe the other two are not too far behind. For true western lovers these books considering the life and times of Leo Guild are sure to be well received by a new generation of readers, and possibly Mr. Gorman may treat us in the future to even further adventures in the life of Leo Guild, a truly exceptional character in western fiction.

Semper Fi.

Exactly what kind of novel is this? Western? Adventure?

Leo Guild is an aging bounty hunter on the trail of a man named Kriker. While on the trail, he understands that the law is not always right, and that right and the law do not agree. Through the mountains, he and his quarry lead/track each other while striving to survive or thrive.

This is not just a western, it is an Ed Gorman novel that happens to take place in the west. Another author, Johnny D Boggs just happens to write this well, which places Mr Gorman in good company.

There is mystery, adventure, struggle against nature, and the inevitable moral conflict.

Death Ground rocks and would make a good film if and only if Gorman could script it.

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