Who wrote the Brothers in Blood Mountie Novels?
BROTHERS IN BLOOD: Ed Gorman’s Mountie Novels as by Daniel St James
Just as U.S. Marshall Frank Adams was about to set down his schooner of beer and face the man who’d just called him a name, the man decided to up the ante. He wasn’t going to settle for just a good old all-American fistfight; he was going to insist on gunplay.
The man’s hand was already dropping to his holster…
— From the novel COLD DEATH by Daniel St James.
re Mountie novels – I wrote this toward the end of my popular GREATEST WRITERS OF MOUNTIE FICTION blog post:
“A lot of the old pulp writers got Canada, our history, our mythology and our Mounted Police routines wrong. Just plain out wrong! And that’s continued with those more modern paperback action-packed Western series — as soon as our gun-totin’ hero crosses north of the border, he leaves the real world behind. Basic research doesn’t apply. The author doesn’t give a damn.”
It was a patriot’s rant, yes. But it was true. And yet…
Yet there’s the Brothers in Blood trilogy, written by Daniel St James. And I’m here to praise it — or at least recommend it.
“Who is Daniel St James?”
For the longest time, I’d asked “Who is Daniel St James?”
Turns out that St James was really Ed Gorman, a top-notch mystery writer and winner of the Shamus Award (given out by the Private Eye Writers of America), the Spur Award (Western Writers of America), and the Ellery Queen Award for Lifetime Achievement in Editing (Mystery Writers of America).
Ed Gorman explained in an interview that the Brothers In Blood series “died without a trace. I got a number of angry reader letters about them. Too much sex, too much back story and too many liberties with the Canadian Mounted Police.”
Ed added, “Of course I got a few letters from people who liked them, too, one from an Australian man who’d written a number of Mountie novels himself. He seemed to like them especially. But as I said they went nowhere.” [1]
Well yes, they went somewhere.
They’re on my pinewood bookshelves right next to such beloved writers as Ian Anderson, James Hendryx, Ralph S Kendall, Trygve Lund, William Byron Mowery and Harwood Steele.
The three Brothers in Blood Mountie novels were published by Berkley Books in 1991 and 1992. The titles were BROTHERS IN BLOOD, TRACKDOWN and COLD DEATH.
The Genre That Jack Built.
The Northwestern Genre burst on the cultural scene in 1903 with the publication of Jack London’s THE CALL OF THE WILD. Followed by WHITE FANG and his collections of short stories set in the Canadian Yukon. Jack had seen the hard side of the Klondike Gold Rush, ending up in Dawson City’s St Mary’s Hospital weak from malnutrition. He had lived through the whirlwind of greed and desperation. And survived the wild sled dogs and savage wolves. His stories reflected that and more.
Robert W Service appeared with popular ballads like “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee,” earning him the title of Bard of the Yukon. “There are strange things done in the midnight sun…”
The Reverend Charles William Gordon, writing as Ralph Connor, followed with CORPORAL CAMERON OF THE NORTH WEST MOUNTED POLICE: A Tale of the MacLeod Trail. Others had written about the Mounties before in fiction, but Gordon’s Allan Cameron of Her Majesty’s North-West Mounted Police was driven by a fiery ideal, religious in its intensity, to be the instrument of justice. Allan Cameron became the first mythic Mountie in the way that Owen Wister’s mysterious stranger with a fast gun in THE VIRGINIAN became the classic Western hero.
At first, the Northwestern appeared as short stories, novels and ballads written by men and women, Canadian and American, who knew the reality of the place. They had been there.
The Western, the Northwestern & Mountie novels
But as the genre exploded with quickly-produced popular books, magazines and movies, all that mattered was that a tale be told. The Northwestern blended with the Western as the same pulp and screen writers created both. Adventure and shoot-outs were all that were needed. Through the 1910’s into the early 50’s, a strange new Canadian Northland appeared in print and especially on the silver screen.
Hollywood’s Canada was a fantastic land indeed. One of resolute red-coated Mounties, American gold prospectors, French Canadian fur trappers, wild lumberjacks, innocent outlaws, independent women. All living in a Neverending Wilderness of whitewater rivers, snow-covered high country, wolf-haunted forests and isolated log-cabin settlements.
The man who wrote as Daniel St James drew on all that.
Mountie Novels – “Bound By A Loyalty Only Brothers Could Share.”
Barton Jaeger was disguised as a Cree Indian. It was in that disguise that he murdered the Mounted Police sentry — and then entered the quarters of the sleeping Inspector Donald Adams, officer commanding of Fort Cree. He slashed again. With his bloody knife in hand and giving a loud war whoop, Jaeger ran from the police post believing he had got his revenge for the Mounties’ near destruction of his whiskey-running empire.
But Inspector Adams had left two sons. U.S. Marshal Frank Adams and his Canadian Mountie brother David set out to catch the killer, only to be drawn into a dangerous trap. So begins BROTHERS IN BLOOD. And the series.
Gorman’s other Mountie novels were…
TRACKDOWN: When four Mounties are killed in a matter of months, David and Frank Adams team up again to uncover a killer in the town of Sunset.
COLD DEATH: Frank and David Adams investigate the suspicious death of Canadian Mountie Karl Swenson, an old friend who appears to have committed suicide by setting himself on fire.
Clues & Villains
I didn’t know who Daniel St James was when I first read the books, except that he was a mystery writer. The clue was there in his villains. Not your traditional Western villain: the crooked banker trying to steal ownership of all the besieged ranches in the rich green Valley. Not your traditional Northwestern villain: crooked government official trying to steal all the richest gold claims along the freezing creeks. The Adams brothers fought all kinds of villains: bad guys — and bad women. The kind of twisted villains mystery writers love.
What I really liked was his multiple viewpoints. Quick chapters through the eyes of one character then another, two, three, sometimes four different people in a row. Although a true Northwestern should include the viewpoint of a loyal sled dog, too, I suppose. And a wild wolf. Maybe a wayward grizzly bear. Some writers (and editors, even readers) don’t like multiple point-of-view stories. I do. So did Ed. [2]
Editor Gary Goldstein
I’m guessing that the concept of Brothers in Blood was suggested to Ed Gorman by editor Gary Goldstein (“whose ideas and encouragement made this book possible”) with the TV series Bordertown in mind. Bordertown was “Cable’s #1 Original Dramatic Program” at that time. Filmed in the wilds of British Columbia, it was set in a frontier boomtown literally on the US/Canada border, policed by both a Canadian Mountie and a US Marshall.
Here’s the ending of TRACKDOWN: “The brothers left the beautiful dead woman and the small, dark shed behind, walked out into the frontier night, and vanished in the whipping snow and wind.” What? Vanished! Were they carried off by a fiendish Wendigo? Beamed up by aliens? No. Quintessential multiple-viewpoint wrap-up: a Hollywood FADEOUT.
Conclusion: All in all, Ed Gorman’s Mountie novels are worth tracking down. A bit darker than the classic Northwestern, but Hollywood’s Canada writ large. Great fun! [3]
“Live Free, Mon Ami!” – Brian Alan Burhoe
Did you like this Mountie Fiction Book Review?
THEN YOU’VE GOT TO SEE “THE WRITERS OF THE NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE” — MY MOST POPULAR LITERARY HISTORY POST:
“Thanks for a wonderful in-depth article on Mountie fiction. I’m a big fan of the Mounties and I really enjoyed the amount of details you provided and found many, many more books to put on my wish list.” Jack Wagner
“I just discovered your blog recently and need to dig deeper into it. That post on Mountie fiction is great!” Western writer James Reasoner
An extensive look at the writers who created the magnificent Mythology of our North-West Mounted Police. My Top 10 Mountie Fiction Writers in some detail — and a look at many other authors. Amply illustrated with marvelous magazine and book covers. FREE TO READ ==> The GREATEST AUTHORS OF NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE FICTION
Footnotes & Heroes:
[1] “I didn’t know who Daniel St James was…” I’ve been dropping in on Steve M’s wonderful “Western Fiction Review” for years and didn’t know that the answer to my question “Who is Daniel St James?” had been there all along. Don’t know why Google hadn’t led me there until now. See Steve’s interview with Ed Gorman at Western Fiction Review Interview Ed Gorman.
By the way, the Australian author who Ed mentions in the insightful interview is almost certainly Ian Anderson, who was proud of his novels and wrote warm-hearted letters to folks who mentioned his work, including me. Like Ed Gorman, Ian drew on all those old Hollywood Mountie movie and pulp magazine storylines he had grown up with. Ian, who had actually served in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for sixteen years, also added his own knowledge and experiences to the mix.
Ian Anderson is one of my picks for the Top 10 Mountie Fiction Writers:
I doubt if any other nation’s Cultural Mythology has ever been created by such an international mix: four Americans, three Canadians, an Australian, an Englishman and a Norwegian. Two of them had served as Canadian Mounted Policemen and one was the son of the greatest Mountie of all time.
[2] “What I really liked was his multiple viewpoints.” There is something absolutely Canadian about Multiple Point of View fiction.
Here’s why. Both Margaret Atwood and Northrop Frye have commented that Canadian Literature has never produced a Mythic Hero. Our heroes are real-life hockey players and our own family members who have stoutly served in our Armed Forces. We love our Team Canada men and women who readily represent us in World Hockey Championships and the Olympics! Most of our commercial hockey players are on foreign teams.
We have no fictional heroic characters. Except perhaps for those of John Candy — his good-hearted, fumbling rogues. And Steve Smith’s Red Green: “Remember, I’m pullin’ for ya. We’re all in this together.”
While British and American film and fiction is full of Heroes (Sean Connery’s James Bond and Duke Wayne’s iconic Westerner, including Louis L’Amour’s Hondo) that reflected those countries’ cultural convictions, consternations and conquests, Canadian fiction/mythology (including our own Mountie novels) is about Wilderness and Community. All of God’s Creatures struggling together to survive and thrive. Or at least Survive.
Our True Northern novel would be one of many voices. Feeling more like a collection of interconnected short stories than an epic romance.
For more, see my PATRIOTIC VOICES OF CANADA: True North Songs, Poems & Stories.
[3] “Hollywood’s Canada writ large…”
The Brothers In Blood cover paintings were by Keith Birdsong and tell a wonderfully strange story in themselves.
It’s true that recruits of the North-West Mounted spent long hours in the ring with the Boxing Master. They were being taught the Canadian Way: meet trouble with a courteous voice and a big John Candy smile or — if that fails — a solid right hook.
The North-West Mounted Police had been formed with the British Mounted Rifles in mind, trained in marksmanship. After President Grant had told Prime Minister Macdonald that sending the Mounties into the Canadian West was considered an Act of War, Ottawa believed it possible that the Force of only 275 men would be fighting the U.S. Cavalry for possession of the Canadian North-West Territories.
But Grant changed his mind.
And the use of firearms by a police force of 275 men sent to bring “Law and Justice” to a wild territory as big as Western Europe, populated by white traders, the Métis Nation and an Indigenous population of an estimated 24,000 men, women and children was quickly discouraged. “A Mounted Policeman should only draw his sidearm as a last resort.”
SEE: CANADIAN MOUNTIES: Creation & Early History of the Royal Mounted Police.
Although the Mounties did wear their sidearms. In these cover images, Birdsong decided that David Adams would leave his revolver at home.
Keith Birdsong was best known for his Star Trek illustrations. Born in Oklahoma, Keith was of the Muscogee Creek-Cherokee people. An accomplished artist. With his own offbeat outlook on life.
My biggest laugh comes from Birdsong’s saloon fight scene for COLD DEATH. At first your eye catches the big Bowie knife. Then you see the snow blowing in. I’m trying to imagine a Northern Canadian building with wide-open Southwest swinging doors. Blackflies in summer — deadly cold in winter. “Somebody close the goddamned door!”
The fact that Berkley chose Birdsong to illustrate their BROTHERS IN BLOOD books indicates that they expected great sales for Ed Gorman’s Mountie Novels.
Image Notes: Photo of Ed Gorman is by Carol Gorman. The composite image above of the Brothers in Blood Series is from Steve’s “Western Fiction Review” — individual cover art details from my own collection. Cover art of New Mystery Adventures, August 1935, is by H J Ward.
BROTHERS IN BLOOD: Ed Gorman’s Mountie Novels as by Daniel St James
In addition to: Brothers in Blood, Daniel St James, Canadian Mountie, Ed Gorman, Gary Goldstein, Ian Anderson, Keith Birdsong art, Mountie fiction, multiple point of view examples, North-West Mounted Police, U S Canadian border, Western Fiction Review, Western writer, Western Writers of America, Who is Daniel St James, writing multiple POV.
