Dan Cushman (1909–2001)

Mr. Leeper, henpecked husband and stepfather, whose chief pleasure in life comes from tea, finds a mysterious message in a bundle of tea accidentally shipped to San Francisco, along with a pouch of industrial diamonds. With the cash from selling them in hand, he is transformed and heads off to Bangkok to unravel the mystery and find a lot of missing gold. Cushman manages to maintain Mr. Leeper's semi-detached attitude about the goings-on--and about death itself once he comes to accept the show more possibly fatal consequences of his quest--throughout the 144-page novel, which is quite a feat of writing. Throw in an adventurer/pilot Mr. Leeper teams up with, some villains, a few beautiful women, and an exotic setting dripping with atmosphere, and you have a very satisfying, humorous, but genuinely exciting story, which leads our heroes from Bangkok behind the bamboo curtain into China's Yunnan province. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by Cushman. show less

A poor effort from a writer capable of much better, as shown by his Port Orient. This tale concerns a shady American operator sent back to Southeast Asia circa 1963 by the FBI to track down an opium smuggling route by using his old connections and pretending to be a smuggler himself. It starts out well enough. Cushman does a great job creating the atmosphere of Bangkok and other Thai and Laotian locations. But about halfway through, the book takes a weird left turn involving a girl who is show more described as being the most beautiful in the world. After that, the book meanders its way to an abrupt, inconclusive ending, leaving the alleged plot and at least one or two major characters unaccounted for. Where was the editor? show less

Rusty Irons is a young man who is always operating on the edge of lawlessness. His brother, Henry is the narrator of the story. Major McKibbin was the big landowner in the area and he was always after the Irons' land. Rusty fell in love with McKibbin's daughter, Gracie, earning the wrath of her father. After she becomes pregnant, her father plans to whisk her to San Francisco for an abortion but Randy stops the stage and takes her away.

When the Major and the local law confront the Irons show more boys' mother about her sons, she takes them on with her Sharps Buffalo gun and is eventually killed. This leads to a final confrontation between Rusty and the Major.

The author manages to include much cowboy lore in the text such as when confronted by mosquitoes, ride with the wind rather than against or to see where people who are following you are relative to your position, look for birds of prey for they will stay close to riders because those riders will stir small animals to move and thus be seen by the birds. show less

I liked this book and its revealing account of life in North America and along the route of the Great North Trail. North American history is quite fun and mysterious worth a trip.