If you like the reading-experience equivalent of watching an episode of a TV western from the late 1950s or early 1960s -- for example, a show like CHEYENNE or THE RIFLEMAN or MAVERICK -- you should try the novels of prolific Australian western writer Leonard Meares, who wrote around 700 novels under a variety of pseudonyms. One series, featuring Big Jim, or Nevada Jim, written under the Marshall McCoy name, is a great action series with well-defined characters that really captures that "TV show episode feeling within a mass market paperback cover." The action is swift, the pacing quick, the writing smooth and flowing. Big Jim is a tough, thoughtful but action-dominated character, whose description reminds me a lot of Cheyenne Bodie, played on TV by Clint Walker. The James Bama cover paintings are great complements to the writing and the well-plotted narratives. Great western entertainment in a small package!

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