The weird westerns continue. This week’s book is Nancy A. Collins’ Dead Man’s Hand. It is a trade paperback collection from Two Wolf Prress from 2004. Contents are a collection of five stories, novellas, and a short novel. Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale.

Nancy Collins was a member for a period of time in the Robert E. Howard United Press Association before I joined. I had heard she had a Solomon Kane story that she ran in her ‘zine. I knew of her weird western short novel “Walking Wolf” through REHUPA. Collins was a star of 1990s and 00s horror with her “Sonja Blue” series of vampire novels and frequent contributor to horror anthologies.

“Hell Come Somedown” is original to the collection. Sam Hell the Dark Ranger is a former Texas Ranger who deals with supernatural creatures bothering people. He is also a vampire on the trail of the Spanish vampire who made him one.

“Lynch” was a harback chapbook from Cemetary Dance Publications in 1998. Collins adapts the Frankenstein story to the Old West.

“Walking Wolf” was a stand alone novel published by Mark V. Ziesing in 1995. Billy Skillet is an infant raised by Comanches. They found him alive at the site of his family’s massacre (not by Indians). Billy finds he is a werewolf. The novel is a sort of Little Big Man story with Billy alternating living with Indians and Whites. He knows Sitting Bull and Quanah Parker. During the novel, he finds who murdered his parents and the connection with his father. My favorite parts of the novel are the supernatural portions with interactions with a vampire, another werewolf, and Witchfinder Jones.

“The Tortuga Hill Gang’s Last Ride: The True Story” is a little less heavy and more like a story owing to pulp magazine Uknown. This was a chapbook from Roadkill Press in 1991. A young gargoyle has read dime novels about the outlaw Black Hat Johnson and wants to join his gang.

“Calaverada” was originally in A Skull Full of Spurs from 2000. Bounty Hunters find their quarry in a Mexican town on Dia de los Muertes. Robert E. Howard would have approved of this story.

This is a strong collection. In fact, I have to say I prefer Nancy Collins’ weird westerns to Joe Lansdale. I have written on my complaint that too many writing weird westerns today are weak on the west part. Nancy Collins knows the period and attitudes. She knows how to write an action scene. I hope she writes more stories about the Dark Ranger.

Nancy Collins has had some bad luck recently with a medical episode. A good way to help her out is buy a book. She has a new Solomon Kane story if so inclined. She had another werewolf western, Wild Blood, that I will be checking out.