JON
LAND’S TEN BEST MODERN-DAY WESTERN HEROES
When
asked about my Caitlin Strong series, I always describe them as modern-day
westerns. And, in fact, the thriller form itself owes a great deal of its
heritage to that genre. Having grown up with the films of Audie Murphy and Roy
Rogers, not to mention classics like Shane,
The Magnificent Seven, and High Noon
along with a host of TV shows, westerns were everywhere. So, you might say
Caitlin Strong was many years in the making. With all that in mind, I thought
it would be fun to assemble a list of the best book series that can be best
classified as following the western motif.
Lee Child's Jack Reacher: The most
quintessential of the lot. Think about it: Instead of a horse, Reacher rides a
bus or a train. He shows up in a town, sometimes a city, wipes out the bad
guys, then gets back on the bus or train and moves on to his next step to
repeat the process all over again. Here, as in westerns, we see staples like
weak or ineffectual law enforcement, corruption and, often, one big bad villain
running herd over it all. Until Reacher arrives, that is.
C. J. Box's Joe Pickett: Box’s
seminal Wyoming game warden resembles the federal marshal of western lore in
that he is the only real law for hundreds of square miles. And, like plenty of
western lawmen, he has a morally-challenged sidekick in the deadly Nate
Romanowski who plays Doc Holliday to Pickett’s Wyatt Earp. And the villains the
pair take on time after time bear an intrinsic connection to the kind of cattle
barons and land grabbers battling over the likes of mineral and water rights.
Kind of like going forward in reverse.
Craig Johnston's Longmire: Walt
Longmire is the kind of crusty, middle-aged sheriff made famous as anti—or, at
least, reluctant—heroes in classic westerns. Normally, they have one more fight
left in them but Longmire never seems to run out of punches. Brilliantly played
by Robert Taylor on the TV show, this small-town sheriff with big problems on
his plate is a cultural anachronism who brings the times to him instead of
adapting. And when things go bad, as is so true in the lore of westerns, he’s
all the town has to turn to.
Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens (JUSTIFIED):
Arguably the great author’s greatest creation, the character made famous by the
hit FX show appeared in two novels (RIDING THE RAP and PRONTO), in addition to
a collection of short stories. Timothy Olyphant’s wondrously realized
performance opened with him gunning down Miami gangster Tommy Bucks . . .
because Bucks didn’t leave town in his allotted twenty-four hours. But the
episode that featured a hitman who’s “killed more men than malaria” coming to
town gunning for Raylan fit the western motif to a T, right down to the
climactic shootout where our stalwart deputy US Marshal literally outdraws his
opponent.
Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon: Barr’s
park ranger is the lone woman on this list, in large part because the classic
western doesn’t serve up a lot of female gunfighters. Pigeon proves an
exception to that rule, a traveling from one national park to another on the
trail of this crime or that, a female Jack Reacher with portfolio. And, as with
that series and many westerns, the hero is cast in the role of the nomadic
stranger, lacking roots and traveling with only what she can carry (still more
than Reacher’s famed toothbrush!) on her back. Every stop along the way becomes
a new beginning, Pigeon showing up often where she’s needed the most and wanted
the least.
Ian Fleming's James Bond: In many
ways, the Cold War brought us the morphing of the western gunfighter hero, made
famous in the dime novels of the early 20th century, into the spy.
The difference, of course, was that the likes of James Bond served a nation and
had a license to kill legally. He carried a Walther PPK instead of a Colt
Peacemaker and stopped marauding bad guys from destroying entire countries
instead of just towns and took on rivals every bit his equal, like Oddjob and
Red Grant, while climbing the ladder to the true masterminds out to fashion a
new world order.
Richard Stark's Parker: The
stoically deadly Parker (perfectly played by Lee Marvin in the classic film
POINT BLANK and based on THE HUNTER) embodies the very concept of what Shane
author Jack Schaeffer called the “savior psychopath.” A bad guy who
occasionally turns away from the dark side to sample the light. Parker is as
much a relentless force of nature as a human being. He’s not going to lose and
if you wrong him, violate his murky code of honor, expect violent
repercussions. Like the outlaw who decides to save the town from bandits
instead of helping them to burn it down.
Gregg Hurwitz's Orphan X: In many
ways Hurwitz’s modern-day gunslinger Evan Smoak is the neatest fit for the mold
cast by westerns. He’s literally the stranger who rides in out of nowhere, the
Man with No Name emerging form Italian spaghetti westerns or their American
offspring such as High Plains Drifter.
Like Parker, Smoak has a streak of moral ambiguity, but he tends to be more
like Jack Reacher, and Shane, when it comes to standing up for what’s right. A
savior psychopath indeed.
Brad Taylor's Pike Logan, Brad Thor's Scot Harvath, and
Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp: This trio of great thriller series
that all emerged from the smoke of 9/11 feature the gunfighter morphing into
special ops soldier, aka Navy SEALS of Delta Force operators. And to varying
degrees all three cover one of the most dominant themes of the western:
redemption. Like the gunfighters of old, Logan, Harvath and Rapp face burnout
and might rather put their worlds behind them, but their natures keep them
fighting and killing. They are who they are and we’re lucky to have them, just
like Joe Starrett (Van Heflin) and his family were lucky to have Shane.
Robert Crais's Joe Pike: There’s
nothing subtle about the former Recon Marine who started out as Elvis Cole’s
sidekick, only to become the basis of a series centered around him on top of
that. And in that sense, he’s about the purest throwback to gunfighters on this
list, wielding a .357 magnum in place of an old-fashioned six-shooter. He’s as
much like Jack Wilson (Jack Palance in the movie) as Shane, especially since
Wilson exemplifies the man Shane used to be. Pike, on the other hand, is what
he’s always been, sticking to a moral code that inevitably finds him sticking
up for those who can’t stick up for themselves.
