Who is this guy? That’s a fair question because he is fairly obscure now. Clifton Adams (1919-1971) was born in Comanche, Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in writing (probably one of the earliest programs of its kind). He served in the military during World War II and discovered his passion for cooking while in the service. He was also a jazz drummer. Early in his career, he wrote for the western pulps in the 40s but transitioned to writing paperback originals as early as 1950.
He scored an early hit with his novel The Desperado (1950), published with Fawcett Gold Medal. The Desperado is the story about a young man named Tall Cameron, whose family moved from Virginia to Texas after the Civil War. One of his neighbors gets into a scuffle with a Union soldier and he is forced to join his neighbor on the run because he had an altercation with a carpetbagger from the north. While on the run, they meet Pappy Garrett, a famous gunslinger. While Tall’s neighbor ends up returning home in hopes of leniency, Tall sticks with Pappy who shows him how to defend himself with a six-shooter. Tall takes to learning to draw fast and shoot accurately. At first, Tall kills in self-defense, but circumstances end up leading him to killing out of revenge. Each action he takes has a natural consequence. His reputation as a quick draw makes a target and a pariah out of him despite the fact that he did not ask for this lifestyle to begin with. This is one of the most convincing portrayals of a man-turned criminal I’ve ever read. You could tell that in most cases, he is placed in a situation of kill or be killed and he rarely has an opportunity to use his own agency. It is only in the end that he has the life of a particular character in his hands and he realizes that he doesn’t have to kill that person, finally taking some control of his life.
Adams followed up this book with a sequel in 1951, A Noose for the Desperado. This one takes place shortly after the first with Tall riding as a drifter. He is a deadly killing machine, although he has no liking for it. His travels bring him to a dead-end town where a gang, in collaboration with the town marshal, heists smuggling trains and Tall sees a chance to cash in. Everything falls apart after he takes the opportunity to seize control. This book is grimmer because it is clear that he feels isolated due to his choices. The life of crime is too much for him and he can’t get out of it. The end of the story ends with a poignant reflection on his life and another moral decision.
The Colonel’s Lady (1952) is a more conventional western with a man who works his way up to become a prominent defender of a fort. Gambling Man (1955) is a psychologically complex novel a young man, Jeff is isolated from the small town in which he is growing up because his father, who abandoned him, has a reputation as a gunslinger and gambler and returns to be in his son’s life only to take the fall for a crime he did not commit. Now Jeff is on the precipice of becoming just like his father partly out of resentment for the town, partly because he learned his dad’s skills of gunslinging and playing cards. The story ends with touching effect.
Although Adams mostly wrote westerns, he was still capable of writing a good modern crime novel. They say that many crime novels, if not most, are re-workings of James M. Cain’s formula established in The Postman Always Rings Twice. If that’s the case, I would say that Adams’s book Death’s Sweet Song (1955) is a superior effort. For one thing, the protagonist is actually likeable. We also see the protagonist evolve from an innocuous motel owner into a murderer when he listens in on a couple of his renters who are planning to heist a business he used to work at. Little by little, he keeps justifying his every action until he no longer has any to provide. In the end, the fragile shell of self-deceit that he formed around himself and kept him going decays. Less sympathetic is his protagonist in Never Say No to a Killer (1958) in which an escaped convict finds his way to becoming a blackmailer.
Whom Gods Destroy (1953) is another devastating book. The title draws from the saying “Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat.” Translated as “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason.” In this one, a lowly fry cook named Roy returns to his hometown in Oklahoma and ends up joining a bootlegging racket since Oklahoma, at the time, was a dry state. He also comes across Lola, the wife of one of the men in the organization. He despises her because she rejected him once as a young man, and it is his hatred for her that drives him to do unspeakably cruel, devious, and stupid things that turns his career of crime into a trainwreck. It can be tough reading a book about someone so irrational, but Adams’ prose pulls us headlong into a compelling story.
What I like about Adams’ work is the fact that he builds his characters well, makes them sympathetic, and has a chain of consequences for all of their actions. In the end there is a moral center to his storytelling which although his characters are understandable, he does not condone their actions either. I haven’t read a book of his that I didn’t like, which are the seven that I just touched on here.
Adams won two consecutive Spur Awards for his western novels (the Spur is the equivalent of a Stoker for horror writers or an Edgar for mystery writers), with Tragg’s Choice in 1969 and The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (1970). He died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 52.
I hope to see more of Adams’ novels back in print. Most books that I described here were reprinted by Stark House Press. I consulted the intros to both of those books for my background info, as well as the French Wikipedia page on Adams, Cullen Gallagher’s writings on Adams in his blog Pulp Serenade, Paperback Warrior’s reviews and episode on Adams, and Bud Elder’s essay that he published with The Oklahoman called “Remembering Clifton Adams.”
In short, I can always count on Adams for a gripping, intelligently written story, making him one of my favorite writers. He was a unique talent and anyone who loves crime noir novels or westerns would have an incomplete library without reading his work.
Written by Nicholas Montelongo
He scored an early hit with his novel The Desperado (1950), published with Fawcett Gold Medal. The Desperado is the story about a young man named Tall Cameron, whose family moved from Virginia to Texas after the Civil War. One of his neighbors gets into a scuffle with a Union soldier and he is forced to join his neighbor on the run because he had an altercation with a carpetbagger from the north. While on the run, they meet Pappy Garrett, a famous gunslinger. While Tall’s neighbor ends up returning home in hopes of leniency, Tall sticks with Pappy who shows him how to defend himself with a six-shooter. Tall takes to learning to draw fast and shoot accurately. At first, Tall kills in self-defense, but circumstances end up leading him to killing out of revenge. Each action he takes has a natural consequence. His reputation as a quick draw makes a target and a pariah out of him despite the fact that he did not ask for this lifestyle to begin with. This is one of the most convincing portrayals of a man-turned criminal I’ve ever read. You could tell that in most cases, he is placed in a situation of kill or be killed and he rarely has an opportunity to use his own agency. It is only in the end that he has the life of a particular character in his hands and he realizes that he doesn’t have to kill that person, finally taking some control of his life.
Adams followed up this book with a sequel in 1951, A Noose for the Desperado. This one takes place shortly after the first with Tall riding as a drifter. He is a deadly killing machine, although he has no liking for it. His travels bring him to a dead-end town where a gang, in collaboration with the town marshal, heists smuggling trains and Tall sees a chance to cash in. Everything falls apart after he takes the opportunity to seize control. This book is grimmer because it is clear that he feels isolated due to his choices. The life of crime is too much for him and he can’t get out of it. The end of the story ends with a poignant reflection on his life and another moral decision.
The Colonel’s Lady (1952) is a more conventional western with a man who works his way up to become a prominent defender of a fort. Gambling Man (1955) is a psychologically complex novel a young man, Jeff is isolated from the small town in which he is growing up because his father, who abandoned him, has a reputation as a gunslinger and gambler and returns to be in his son’s life only to take the fall for a crime he did not commit. Now Jeff is on the precipice of becoming just like his father partly out of resentment for the town, partly because he learned his dad’s skills of gunslinging and playing cards. The story ends with touching effect.Although Adams mostly wrote westerns, he was still capable of writing a good modern crime novel. They say that many crime novels, if not most, are re-workings of James M. Cain’s formula established in The Postman Always Rings Twice. If that’s the case, I would say that Adams’s book Death’s Sweet Song (1955) is a superior effort. For one thing, the protagonist is actually likeable. We also see the protagonist evolve from an innocuous motel owner into a murderer when he listens in on a couple of his renters who are planning to heist a business he used to work at. Little by little, he keeps justifying his every action until he no longer has any to provide. In the end, the fragile shell of self-deceit that he formed around himself and kept him going decays. Less sympathetic is his protagonist in Never Say No to a Killer (1958) in which an escaped convict finds his way to becoming a blackmailer.
Whom Gods Destroy (1953) is another devastating book. The title draws from the saying “Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat.” Translated as “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason.” In this one, a lowly fry cook named Roy returns to his hometown in Oklahoma and ends up joining a bootlegging racket since Oklahoma, at the time, was a dry state. He also comes across Lola, the wife of one of the men in the organization. He despises her because she rejected him once as a young man, and it is his hatred for her that drives him to do unspeakably cruel, devious, and stupid things that turns his career of crime into a trainwreck. It can be tough reading a book about someone so irrational, but Adams’ prose pulls us headlong into a compelling story.
What I like about Adams’ work is the fact that he builds his characters well, makes them sympathetic, and has a chain of consequences for all of their actions. In the end there is a moral center to his storytelling which although his characters are understandable, he does not condone their actions either. I haven’t read a book of his that I didn’t like, which are the seven that I just touched on here.
Adams won two consecutive Spur Awards for his western novels (the Spur is the equivalent of a Stoker for horror writers or an Edgar for mystery writers), with Tragg’s Choice in 1969 and The Last Days of Wolf Garnett (1970). He died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 52.
I hope to see more of Adams’ novels back in print. Most books that I described here were reprinted by Stark House Press. I consulted the intros to both of those books for my background info, as well as the French Wikipedia page on Adams, Cullen Gallagher’s writings on Adams in his blog Pulp Serenade, Paperback Warrior’s reviews and episode on Adams, and Bud Elder’s essay that he published with The Oklahoman called “Remembering Clifton Adams.”
In short, I can always count on Adams for a gripping, intelligently written story, making him one of my favorite writers. He was a unique talent and anyone who loves crime noir novels or westerns would have an incomplete library without reading his work.
Written by Nicholas Montelongo
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