South of Rio Grande by Max Brand (1936)

Cover illustration by Jack Thornton. Spoiler warning: the man on the cover is not a character in this novel.

I enjoyed this one a lot and I highly recommend it.

Joe Warder, the gunman and jailbird, is hired to go down to Mexico to bring back the bandit chief El Tigre. Seems simple enough. However, a young Irish man named Dennis MacMore is tagging along for the ride, looking for his brother Patrick, whom he praises and admires, and who is in the very same town that El Tigre is operating in, the town of San Clemente.

It seems that young Denny is way in over his head. He's unskilled, inexperienced and generally a burden on the mission. He reads and sings, but that amounts to too little. Joe is already too far ahead to send the boy back; he'd already saved him from a mugger named Pedro Oñate (Cool name!) and wasn't going to risk leaving him alone again.

Fortunately, where Dennis lacks in survival skills he makes up for in gumption. After Joe is pursued by a gang of horsemen, Dennis, who is behind them and who is a lousy shot on an emaciated horse, goes charging after them, firing a rifle wildly, and saves Joe's life, therefore earning his right to accompany Joe on the search for El Tigre, and also for Patrick MacMore. It won't be easy, but together the two just might be able to make it.

This book had me hooked right from the start. Sometimes you can easily guess what's going to happen, sometimes not. There's one character in the novel whom you can't even tell is good or not, all you know is that he's really cool, and very memorable.

Our narrator, Joe Warder, is strong and heroic, but very human and sympathetic. He's terrified of hunting for El Tigre and is constantly wary of the perilous journey he is embarking on. I like his self-deprecation, that's a nice touch. More than once he mentions his broken nose and smashed up face. And I love the way he regards everything with a degree of disbelief. Often throughout he essentially says, "I can't believe I'm writing this, but it actually happened."

But the story belongs to Dennis MacMore, a truly unique character in a work of Western literature. He's plucky, although inexperienced. He's impulsive and a hopeless romantic, but resourceful and intelligent. He is the heart and soul of South of Rio Grande. Brand has created a truly well rounded character here.

Even his love interest, La Carmelita, doesn't shy away from the action. Though she is young, she carries herself like a queen. She may be in distress, but she's not weak. And though she is even more experienced than Dennis, she is a brave fighter. I was pleasantly surprised by her and her development as a whole. She beats down a guy with a broken oar in one scene!
She has a reputation for being the most beautiful woman in San Clemente, and I can only picture a sweeter, Mexican Crimson O'Hairoil in my imagination.

Joe himself seems to be attracted to strong young women. After hearing about General Pinzon's daughter and how helpful she was to Dennis, Joe decides that although he's forty two and has a broken nose, and she's reportedly not attractive, he'd totally do her. That's what he essentially said. He also appears to have the hots for La Carmelita as well, even though she's also young enough to be his daughter. Moving along.

The action itself is taut and tightly paced. The whole thing kept me guessing. I found it that difficult to put it down.

The descriptions of the setting are lush and vivid, from the desert, to the streets of San Clemente, to the moonlit river and Alvarado gardens.

One or two problems with it, though. First of all, this is not recommended for any Asian readers. One small scene with "the Chink waiter" is enough to put anyone off even a bit.

Any Mexican readers might be offended as well, especially when reading about ones like the Guadalupe family, but Joe tries to explain that he doesn't think they're all a bad lot. "When they're bad, they're poison. When they're good, they furnish you with a finer type of gentlemen than any I've ever seen from Texas to Montana". And indeed San Clemente is full of a diverse range of characters. For every Pedro Oñate and Jose Guadalupe, there are noble, helpful and decent characters such as Orthez, the Pinzon family and, again, La Carmelita, who is rumoured to be a maneater but who is good as gold.

The second problem is that the ending has a twist in it which doesn't make any sense and very nearly ruined such an enjoyable piece of work for me. It's not only disappointing, it's improbable as well.

Anyway, it's an exciting adventure with vivid imagery, colourful characters and one twist after another. I don't want to spoil too much because for most part, it's that good of a ride, that good of a journey into a new and exciting world.