WILD WEST MONDAY - GUEST BLOGGER - Ray Foster/Jack Giles

Today's guest blogger in Mr. Ray Foster who writes Black Horse Westerns using the pen name of Jack Giles. Ray is a true gentleman and an inspiration to all that know him - his own blog can be found HERE.

Ray's most recent Jack Giles western, LAWMAN sold out but will be republished in large print this September by Linford and can be pre-ordered HERE.

Check out an earlier Archive interview with Ray HERE

Ray should next be seen in the forthcoming, Where Legends Ride II anthology.

And - so I hand you over to Mr. Ray Foster AKA Jack Giles


Birth of a Gunman
BRET REY
Black Horse Westerns

I have to admit that I know nothing about this author except that he was British and arrived on the Western scene with the publication with Robert Hale, in 1985, with ‘Birth Of A Gunman’ and continued writing Black Horse Westerns until 1997 with ‘Bullets In Buzzard Creek’. In between he wrote a total of twenty seven novels.
Sometimes he would return with the same character as with Ned Butler in ‘Hold Up’, ‘Ned Butler – Bounty Hunter’ and ‘Railroad Robbers’ or Will Foreman the hero of ‘Runaway’ and ‘Arizona Breakout’.


His first two novels featured Ralph Coates who was fast with a gun but yet had to prove that he could kill a man. Circumstances had him escorting his abused sister to a relative and it is during this time that he has to kill in order to protect her. From this birth as a gunman Ralph Coates’ story continues in ‘Stranger In Town’. A few years later Rey returned to this character in ‘Marshal Without A Badge’.


Bret Rey wrote traditional westerns that maintained the interest to the end.


One of the best was the unusual, I felt, ‘A Bullet For Darwen’. In this novel Ulysses Darwen loses his partners and becomes the sole owner of one of the biggest cattle ranches in Texas. In the hope that he can get an heir to his estate Darwin sends for a mail order bride but she takes an instant dislike to him. She becomes a pawn in someone else’s game that, in turn, becomes a blackmail plot. Piece by piece Darwen’s past becomes exposed revealing a good character driven plot.




The Archive thanks RAY for his contribution to the build up to the third Wild West Monday. All month we've got a western theme going with western posts every single day and this coming Tuesday we'll look at Ray's stable mates at the Black Horse Western range including a question/answer session with the Marshall of a town called Black Horse, Mr. John Hale - publishers of the UK's successful western range.