[Big Jim 07] • No Escape Trail

Clay Morrow was trapped.

He should have stayed in Ellistown, his small hometown wherein life passed unhurriedly and the sound of gunfire was rarely heard. But rebellious instincts compelled him to ride out in search of a new identity and wild adventure.

Very soon, Clay was involved in more adventure, more trouble, more danger than he could handle. His trail had crossed that of the desperate men who conspired to attack and loot an army supply wagon.

In the moment of crisis, the adventurer was thrown together with a veteran manhunter, the astute, courageous Jim Rand, and that bucktoothed bravado from south of the border, Benito Espina.

Thereby hangs a tale …

Leonard Frank Meares (February 13, 1921 - February 4, 1993)

Sydney born Len Meares aka Marshall Grover, published around 750 novels, mostly westerns. His best-known works feature Texas trouble-shooters Larry and Stretch. Before starting to write, Meares served in the Royal Australian Air Force, worked in the Department of Immigration and sold shoes. In the mid-1950s he bought a typewriter to write radio and film scripts. Inspired by the success of local paperback westerns, he wrote Trouble Town, which was published by the Cleveland Publishing Company in 1955.

His tenth yarn, Drift! (1956), introduced Larry Valentine and Stretch Emerson. In 1960, he created a brief but memorable series of westerns set in and around the town of Bleak Creek. Four years later came The Night McLennan Died, the first of more than 70 westerns (sometimes called oaters) to feature cavalryman-turned-manhunter Big Jim Rand.