Six-Gun Justice

BETWEEN 1968 AND 1971, Paperback Library published twenty slim western novels under the house name Alex Hawk. They were uniformly packaged with cool western pulp style illustrations on the covers. I really dug both the aesthetics of the series and the stories themselves. The books in the series are akin to eating Lay’s Potato Chips—you can’t read just one—which meant when I discovered the first three in a used bookstore and finished reading them, I had to track down all twenty. That was the easy part. The hard part began when I tried to identify the actual authors, which has turned out to be harder than figuring out the wordslingers writing behind non-disclosure agreements for the William Johnstone brand. A big part of the reason it’s harder is because the Alex Hawk books were written fifty years ago, and whatever sign left behind for a tracker to follow has been covered over by the sands of time.

The indications are there were at least ten writers and perhaps as many as fifteen behind the Alex Hawk house name. Some may have written only one title, some two or three, and one at least five. All the books were stand-alones featuring different heroes, with the exception of three books featuring the character of half-breed sheriff Elfego O’Reilly, written by a big name wordslinger who I’ll unmask in a second— which puts a picture in my head of a guy in a mask pounding away furiously on his battered Olivetti, but perhaps that’s a little farfetched.

There’s no doubt I’ve spent more time banging my head against search engines trying to figure this out than the mystery is actually worth. However, I did manage to discover there was some heavyweight western wordslinging behind the pseudonym as well as some lesser lights.

The problem of author identification starts with the copyright for all books assigned to Coronet Communications. There is no indication of the actual authors either on the title page inside the books or in the US Copyright listings. Any information pertaining to Coronet Communications has disappeared into the ionosphere along with the company itself.

If I was to make an educated guess, it wouldn’t be unusual for a company like Coronet Communications to act as a book packager. The most likely scenario is Paperback Library asked Coronet to create a western series expecting Coronet to find the authors for the series, edit the books, and then turn them over to Paperback Library to publish.

However, a packaged series being built around a pseudonym—Alex Hawk—instead of a recurring character would be very unusual. This begs the question, did Paperback Library come up with the Alex Hawk house name—which would be most likely—or did an editor at Coronet pull it out of thin air? It also makes you wonder if Alex Hawk was actually supposed to be the name of the series character, and somewhere in the process it ended up as the shared author alias. It all could have been a miscommunication between Paperback Library and Coronet, but that’s another mystery about these books which will never be solved at this late date. As it is, this is a mystery only Sheriff Minutia would worry about solving, but again these are the kinds of details hardcore genre fans thrive on, right? I am possibly confusing western fans with Star Trek fanatics, a mistake that might lead directly to a Six-Gun Justice Podcast cosplay contest.

But let’s get back to making a long story longer... I have no doubt the books were contracted as work-forhire gigs. These would be contracts accepted by writers needing to make a quick buck by turning out in a week or two what in reality was a fifty thousand word story—too long to qualify as a novella but barely long enough to be called a novel. The books published under the Alex Hawk pseudonym were stripped down, guns blazing, fists flying actioneers that would have been right at home in the best of the old school western pulps.

My favorite Alex Hawk book is Savage Guns, which made sense when I learned it was written by Brian Garfield. With some more digging, I was able to discover the highly respected Elmer Kelton also donned the identity of Alex Hawk when he penned Shotgun Settlement. Kelton would later republish Shotgun Settlement under his own name using the slightly revamped title, Shotgun. It’s hard to say if Kelton officially got the rights back for Shotgun Settlement, or Coronet Communications went so completely defunct the issue of rights conversion was a moot point. However, Kelton was an upright guy, so I’m going to assume the best and say the rights reverted to him at some point—unusual for a work for hire gig but possible.

Checking several bibliographical sources for Kelton and Garfield, I confirmed Alex Hawk was listed as a pseudonym for both. The sources further confirmed Savage Guns as Garfield’s Alex Hawk title and Shotgun Settlement as Kelton’s. Since there were no other Alex Hawk titles listed for either author in their bibliographies, I think it’s safe to assume their tenure as Alex Hawk was confined to a single outing.

Hauling out my copy of Hawk’s Pseudonyms, a regular go-to reference work, I checked the listing for Alex Hawk. Both Garfield and Kelton were again confirmed along with several other Alex Hawk stand-ins. These included well-known western wordslinger Giles Lutz and two other lesser-known scribes—Johanos Bouma and Joseph Chadwick. This was a definite step forward in solving the enigma of Alex Hawk. However, there was no indication of which Alex Hawk books Bouma or Chadwick had written.

Violence Valley by Alex Hawk.

Blood Trail by Alex Hawk.

My next stop was Twentieth Century Western Writers—another fantastic reference. The entry for Giles Lutz was a bonanza crediting him with five Alex Hawk titles—Tough Town, Drifters Luck, and the three books I mentioned earlier featuring the character of Elfego O’Reilly—Mex, Half Breed, and Mexican Standoff. Frustratingly, the entries for Bouma and Chadwick did not list Alex Hawk as a pseudonym, nor did any Alex Hawk titles appear in the listings of their works—but more on them later.

Half Breed by Alex Hawk.

While researching the Western TV tie-ins episode of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast, the name Owen Dean—a pseudonym used by the prolific Dudley Dean McCaughy—was credited on many of the western tie-in novels. I was looking through his extensive bibliography when I came across two books— Pecos Swap and Blood Trail—which he wrote as Alex Hawk. Bingo! Another wordslinger unmasked from behind the Alex Hawk pseudonym along with two more titles with solid attribution.

At this point, my Alex Hawk dance card is filling up. Garfield and Kelton each wrote one identified Alex Hawk title. Owen Dean wrote two identified titles; and Giles Lutz is the top scorer with five identified Alex Hawk titles.

This leaves Johanos Bouma and Joseph Chadwick identified as authors—but not the books they wrote or how many—and eleven titles still not matched to authors. It was time for a deep dive into the mysteries of the Internet. My search for Johanos Bouma turned up nothing of interest. However, when I searched for J. L. Bouma, it came back with the cover of the Danish edition of McGee under the title Haevntorst. Score one for Google. I kept digging and found a reference to the Danish edition for Gunslick, with Joseph Chadwick behind the Alex Hawk pseudonym.

There were a number of other Alex Hawk titles published in German, Swedish, and Danish editions but no further information as to the authors disguised as Alex Hawk. The titles had also been changed, and it was difficult to match them to the original titles. I have my suspicions Wayne D. Overholser, Roy Hogan, and T.V. Olsen took turns as Alex Hawk, but I was unable to uncover any solid confirmation or any indication as to which books they may have penned.

Currently, the score stands at six authors identified along with the eleven titles they wrote as Alex Hawk— leaving nine titles with unidentified authors. The trail may be cold, but I am relentless, and the search goes on. If anyone out there knows any more information pertaining to the Alex Hawk books, please drop Sheriff Minutia an email at www.sixgunjusticewesterns@gmail.com.

ALEX HAWK TITLES

Savage Guns—Brian Garfield

Shotgun Settlement—Elmer Kelton

Mex—Giles Lutz

Half-Breed—Giles Lutz

Mexican Standoff—Giles Lutz

Trouble Town—Giles Lutz

Drifter’s Luck—Giles Lutz

Pecos Swap—Owen Dean

Blood Trail—Owen Dean

McGee—Johanos Bouma

Gunslick—Joseph Chadwick

Blizzard Herd

Brand Him Gunfighter

Gunslammer

Crossfire

Ruthless Return

Violence Valley

High Vengeance

Hidden Hills

The Last Bullet

—PAUL BISHOP is a novelist, screenwriter, and western genre enthusiast, as well as the co-host of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast, which is available on all major streaming platforms or on the podcast website: www. sixgunjustice.com/