COST $49.95 plus shipping

Books published by the Boone & Crockett Club are highly sought after, collectible, usually appreciate in value, and are lavish productions. This book is no different: it is big, and was printed in an oblong format with decorated endpapers and brown paper covered boards with dark brown titles and an attractive dust jacket.

The book spans all forms of hunting in the United States and its mainland territories during the 19th century from 1800 to 1900. This was the heyday of western big-game hunting, and it featured some tragic wildlife slaughters but it also spawned conservationists like President Teddy Roosevelt, who founded the famed Boone & Crockett Club.

This is something much more than a large picture book. It is a handsome piece of work that chronicles the beginnings of the conservation movement. It also was a period of western expansion, an era of exploration and the opening up of the western states and territories to hunting, much of which occurred in areas where no one other than a Native American may have once trod to hunt for meat to feed his family.

This book, with its superb narrative, tells us that most of the hunting was for the more abundant of game species: antelope, bears, bison, deer, elk and sheep. Wonderful historic illustrations fill the book with old color paintings and photographs, and black-and-white drawings and photos.

In 396 pages, there are nine chapters: The Object Of The Chase; The Subsistence Hunters; The Sport Hunters (1800-1865); The Arms Of The Chase; The Market Hunters; The Sport Hunters; The Image Of The Chase; The Sport Hunters (from 1865-1900); and The Hunter-Naturalists. A lengthy bibliography comes at the end of the book, and offers readers the opportunity to learn more about hunting books published during that era.

This is a book to get lost in, to take a long look at where hunting has come from and we have good ideas of where it will be going in the future with other conservationists and sportsmen leading the way.

Many of the color illustrations were once used as wildlife art on the covers of catalogs produced by firearm manufacturers. These illustrations stir the soul of present-day hunters, just as they did for our fore-fathers.

This book covers a time of big-game abundance in most western areas, and chronicles the gradual decline of wild bison and other game. Once sportsmen saw game numbers sliding downward, many lobbied for more and greater protection against market hunting. It set the stage for hunting seasons and a limit to what a hunter could kill.

Make no mistake about it: this is a big book. Richly illustrated, and filled with documentation of the work of some of the artists and photographers who roamed the west recording in drawings and photos, the passing of one era of plenty to another that marked the beginning of conservation clubs and a greater sense of protection for our natural resources.

The Boone & Crockett Club, founded by Teddy Roosevelt and friends, marked the real beginning of the major upswing of a national conscience about our wildlife resources and how our big-game was hunted. This is a wonderful historical look, through words and images, at what hunting was during the 19th century in the west.

It is a book that tells a great story, and it’s one that all sportsmen should read.

AUTHOR: Joe Heywood
PUBLISHER: The Lyons Press
DISTIRBUTOR: Globe Pequot Press, 246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437-0480
CONTACT: Globe Pequot Press, 246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437-0480

WEBSITE: Globe Pequot Press
WEBSITE: Authors Website
COST $24.95 + S/H; Hardcover book with dust jacket

This is the sixth book in Heywood’s highly acclaimed Woods Copy Mystery Series. The chief focus of each Woods Cop book is Grady Service, a hard-nosed, rawboned conservation officer and detective for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Most of his earlier books have dealt with Service’s painstaking challenges to enforce fish & game laws in the Upper Peninsula, but not this time.

This book is a fictionalized account of a company contracted to harvest salmon and eggs at the state-owned weirs on Great Lakes tributaries where salmon run up-river to spawn in the fall. The weirs are manned by the contracted company, but all types of illegal shenanigans take place as the company bills for more fish than they harvest. And that’s just the tip of the ice berg.

A woman, employed by the company, tastes the eggs of harvested salmon and pronounces them acceptable for caviar. Soon the company is mixing New York salmon eggs, which contain Mirex, a deadly chemical, and those eggs are unsafe for human consumption. The contaminated eggs are added for “taste” to the Michigan eggs, which were fit for eating. The woman dies from the poison, and piece by piece, Grady Service and a female conservation officer begin to learn more about this company and its corrupt ways of doing business.

They uncover bribes, kickbacks, and other illegalities that compromise some state employees. The web of deceit and crime spreads to a host of Upper Peninsula Yoopers, officers of the New York state fish and wildlife agency, and then federal game wardens and IRS agents enter the case.

The book has 346 pages of hard-hitting, explosive twisting and turning plot shifts, and Heywood manages to keep the reader hooked on this fast-paced novel.

Not only is Service a target for the criminal enterprise operating on Michigan’s spawning streams, but his work on this rapidly developing case makes him a target for some of the DNR’s highest ranking personnel. In true Woods Cop fashion, he doesn’t slow down, and continues to forge ahead until the outlaw operation is put out of business.

This book has it all: page-turning suspense, a weird cast of characters who are just weird enough to be real-life people. The book moves along with crisp dialogue, fast-paced action, and some feelings for an aging officer who gets banged up a bit.

Heywood has a solid background in what goes on with Michigan conservation officers because he spends a great deal of time riding with officers, and this gives him a great feel for what the life of an officer is all about.

This is a good read, and like the other books in the Woods Cop series, it leaves the reader wanting another quick taste of what Heywood’s next book will be about, and that is always a major surprise.

AUTHOR: John Burger

PUBLISHER: Safari Press
DISTIRBUTOR: Safari Press, 15621 Chemical Lane, Building B, Huntington Beach, CA 92649-1506

CONTACT: Safari Press, 15621 Chemical Lane, Building B, Huntington Beach, CA 92649-1506

WEBSITE: Safari Press (contact or detailed information on this or and other Safari Press books)
eMAIL: info@safaripress.com
PHONE: 1 (714) 894-9080
ISBN #
COST $35 + S/H These books are not sold through other stores but must be order directly from the publisher.

The name John Burger has always been linked with the African buffalo because the author shot more than 1,000 of these animals during his many years in Africa, and he had more experience with these cantankerous critters than any man who ever hunted them.

The Cape buffalo has a nasty disposition, and it doesn’t take much to tip them over the ragged edge and into a rage. They tend to take their anger out on the closest thing, and if it is a hunter the buff sees, he plans to ambush you or charge from a distance. In any case, if the buffalo catches the hunter, the animal will hook the victim, bounce it into the ground, throw the person into the air, and otherwise rearrange that poor soul’s anatomy in such a way that few attack victim can survive.

Burger, after all the buffalo he had shot, considered this animal one of the most dangerous animals on earth. This book has everything needed to make it a fun but frightening read.

Burger seemed to have a wonderful sense of humor, and in one chapter describes how he and a friend lassoed a Cape buffalo although both men were injured in the fracas. In another account he described spending some time with a murderer and robber, who was eventually hauled off to jail.

This isn’t all about hunting Cape buffalo. It also deals with elephants and other game, but make no mistake about it: after reading Horned Death, and how dangerous this animal can be, a person will develop a new brand of respect for them.

Twenty-eight chapters, and 348 pages with numerous black-and-white photos, and Burger covers hunting this animal in grand fashion. His respect for the dangers of guiding hunters on a Cape buffalo hunt shows through.

The dust jacket cover, with its bold and haunting cover, sets the stage for what is inside. The cover features a red-eyed buffalo, and if that doesn’t grab you attention about this animal, nothing short of a buffalo attack will do the trick.

This is a book for the hardcore African hunter, a person who is willing to stand his ground, aim for the brain and hope the bull dies farther away than one buff the author shot. It died five steps away from him.

This is a book as pertinent to current buffalo hunters and hunting as it was after the turn of the 20th Century when Burger began killing Cape buffalo to feed the natives working to build railroad tracks across much of the African continent. Hunters may never experience all of the scenes that Burger describes, but if they experience just one charge during a hunt, they will be happy to have read this book before heading for Africa.

It is a very good read, and this is a legendary hunting title.

COST $45.00 postpaid

Ruark Remembered By The Man Who Knew Him Best by Alan Ritchie and edited by Jim Casada. Published by Sporting Classics. The book can be ordered from Casada at 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730-7638. $45 postpaid.

Anyone who has read my writings over 41 years, and has followed my decades of book reviews, surely knows about my love for the writings of Robert Ruark. He first captured my interest and soul back in the 1950s when his “Old Man & The Boy” stories appeared monthly.

I greeted each magazine installment with great passion, and finally purchased the book by the same name when it was first published. Now, more than 50 years later, I still read the book once or twice each year. It is, without question, the finest piece of outdoor writing I’ve read.

To say I’ve had a longtime love affair with his writings would be an understatement. He, much like Ernest Hemingway before him, and Peter Hathaway Capstick after him, abused his body and his liver, with heavy daily administrations of alcoholic beverages. It led to an early death for one of the greatest writers of all time.

Now, I’ve been given another Ruark fix – Ruark Remembered By The Man Who Knew Him Best – written by Alan Ritchie. Ritchie served as Ruark’s secretary for many years, and kept copious notes about the man he considered his best boss and best friend.

Make no mistake about it. Ruark was no angel, and could be a hell-raiser when he chose to act up. He was a very complex individual, and Ritchie pulls no punches when describing some of his boss’ escapades, sexual and otherwise.

Jim Casada, as the books editor, pulled together some 800 double-spaced pages, Americanized the spelling and writing (Ritchie was British), and pared the fluff down without removing any of the author’s original flavor.

This is a book, after just one reading, that must be read again and again to ferret out the true intent of Ritchie’s work. The author spent most of 17 years after Ruark’s death writing this work. Casada had to spend weeks pulling it into shape, arranging the chapters in a semblance of order, and then much more time editing it to make it read well.

This book covers Ruark’s life (1915-1965) from childhood to middle-age, and it reveals all the good, bad and ugly things about his 50 years of life. It also gives readers a greater sense of who and what Ruark really was.

He was many different things to many different people, but it seems his greatest love was for the African continent, its animals and its people. It was there he met the famous profession hunter Harry Selby, and they would remain friends until Ruark’s death.

A sampling of chapters in this book will help readers determine much of the content of this book, but they are only teasers. It’s the material inserted between chapter-heads that make this book such an interesting read. Ruark, all by himself, was an amazing man, and one capable of setting a mood with whatever he happened to write about.

Book chapters include: Harry Selby Looks Back (the introduction), The Boy Alone, Chapel Hill Days, The Boy Takes On The World, New Horizons, Belt-Level Journalist, First Footsteps In Africa, Ritchie Joins Ruark, Putting Down Roots In Spain, The Early Books, A Love Affair With Africa Begins, Expanding Literary Horizons, Ruark In His Prime, New Problems & Poor No More, Africa Again, The Last Books, Ruark As A Columnist, The Man Who Was Robert Ruark, Problems With Parents, Money Matters, A Love Affair With Africa Continues, Ruark On Safari, Attacked By A Leopard, New Vistas In Africa, Personal Insights, Demon Rum and Health Problems, Payboy Bob, I Know He’s A Bastard, Life’s Compass Lost, Last Trip To Palamos, The Honey Badgers At Work, and The End Of A Grand Run. There are 274 pages and many black-and-white and color photos.

Ruark captured my soul with his The Old Man and The Boy stories, and then The Old Man’s Boy Grows Older book. As a youngster I took to these articles and read and re-read them. They were an important part of my childhood and my growing-up process, and many of the stories I read in those early days have stuck with me for more than a half-century.

Some of the things revealed in Ruark Remembered run contrary to what I felt him to be back when I was at an impressionable age. None of us are ever what we seem, and it’s likely Ruark may have had a few more warts than the rest of us.

That said, this is a great book, a wonderful read, and a glimpse into the life of my childhood hero. It’s best, I feel, to remember him as I do from the late 1950s. For me, remembering Ruark means going back to a time when life was much simpler and being a boy was easier than it is now.

AUTHOR: Lt. Col. William S. Brophy USAR, Ret.
PUBLISHER: Stackpole Books
DISTIRBUTOR: Stackpole Books
CONTACT:
Stackpole Books
5067 Ritter Road
Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

WEBSITE: Stackpole Books
ISBN #978-0-8117-0877-7
COST $89.95 + S/H; Hardcover, dust jacket, 696 pages with index, black-white photos & drawings.

This large and heavy book is not only a tribute to the company and its many employees and fine products but to the firearms themselves. This book is the encyclopedia of Marlin firearms, and the author left no stone unturned in his efforts to make this book complete in all respects.

This book discusses Marlin firearms in all their many forms. The company made handguns, Ballard rifles, lever action rifles, semiautomatic rifles, bolt action rifles, shotguns and pump action rifles for sportsmen and target shooters. They also made barrels for automatic rifles during World War II and the Korean Conflict.

The company bearing his name was founded by John Mahlon Marlin (1836-1901), and he first began making pistols. In 1863, Marlin became known as a pistol-maker in New Haven, Conn. By 1871 he became known as a pistol manufacturer, and in 1872 he was known as a manufacturer of firearms. From that time on, Marlin’s business became known as the Marlin Fire Arms Company. It went through other name changes in the future as Marlin’s business became affiliated with other similar businesses.

The book is filled with historic photographs and patent drawings. The company manufactured machine guns for the war efforts for World War I and II, and the company made machine guns for the U. S. Navy and machine guns for air planes.

Marlin firearms were a part of my youth, and it was through advertising and dramatic drawings such as the one on the cover of this book, that provided me with the romance of this American firearm company back when I was a kid.

Marlin firearms played an important role in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and this book captures everything about this company that made it a household name during that era. This was, in true American fashion, the story of one man’s dream and how he built it into a nationally known and world recognized manufacturer of fine firearms.