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The title of Selby’s novel, Where's My Wife, gives no indication that readers will be saddling up for a ride through the canyons of the Western genre. But if you decide to turn the pages, that's what you'll be doing. In the tradition of frontier tomes straddling the fence between the ending of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, this novel stakes its claim to a bit more of the former than the latter.
A former Texas Ranger, turned dime novelist with the quirky moniker of Rocky Stone, finds himself hoisted on his own petard when his wife is kidnapped by outlaws using the fictional plan he laid out in one of his earlier potboilers. Seems the exceedingly evil and ironically named Charlie Christian is not only out to strip Rocky of his pulp payola but he also wants an immense measure of revenge after the ex-lawman put him in the pokey. Charlie has a sociopathic habit of killing the women he comes in contact with, placing Rocky's wife in particular peril. While paying the ransom is no guarantee of getting his wife back alive, the criminal-chaser turned storyteller has to revert to his original line of work if he has any chance of getting his wife back in one piece—and still breathing.
Authors Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour set the standard for the many Western novels that followed theirs. Even the prolific crime writer, Elmore Leonard, dabbled in the genre from time to time. It's admirable to see today's writers doing what they can to keep the Western alive. So if you aren't averse to prose that tells you what it's going to tell you and then tells you again, then mount up. Adventure awaits in Selby’s Where’s My Wife.