This 1950 Whitman hardback is my favorite juvenile Roy Rogers novel. The author, Walker A. Thompkins, wrote numerous Western novels and stories. I have read very few, usually when I found a story in some old pulp magazine. I have a few vintage paperback Westerns of his, but not much else. Roy Rogers and the Ghost of Mystery Rancho is well written with an implausible plot. The target audience were pre-teens and the writing reflects the common 1950s attitude toward juveniles which meant keep it simple. Still, the narrative flows well and Thompkins had a knack for making the silliness palpable. I can’t fault his writing at all. At the time, Westerns were still immensely popular, and both writers and filmmakers were obligated in making the Horse Operas seem fresh. No easy task, considering Westerns were mass produced in multiple mediums; paperbacks, hardbacks, magazines, radio, films and television shows all routinely featured Westerns. They were a part of the American diet; a full-course meal of galloping horses and blazing six-shooters. Masked vigilantes were long the trend, in both pulp stories and film serials, and Thompkins put that device to good use right away. Down in Texas, Roy is riding with Texas Ranger, Whetlaw, who is investigating a report of a ghost terrorizing a rancher named Conroy. When Whetlaw is killed by a talking skeleton, Roy vows to wear his old friend’s tin Ranger star until the culprit is brought to justice. In chapter two, Roy dashes into the place known as “Haunted Mansion” and confronts the talking skeleton, seated now in a chair. Roy plugs the skeleton with his Colt, saying, “Skeletons can’t talk any more than they can shoot. We’ll see if you can take lead as well as sling it.” Roy deduces the prop was rigged to fire guns when a trip-wire was activated, and a hose provided the skeleton a voice, spoken by a still unknown enemy. It doesn’t take long for an actual walking and talking garbed skeleton to show up, and a bullet proof one at that. I enjoyed the speed in which the melodrama unfolded, piling up clues and mysteries one at a time. A blind foreman, quicksand danger, a girl named Texanna, a cowboy named Jingo Bates (what a great name), a smuggler’s cave, and Senor Rattlesnake and his outlaw gang all lend a breathless Saturday morning matinee feel to the prose. Not all of the Whitman books successfully evoked the thrill a ten-year old boy might feel watching one of those Roy Rogers movies, but Roy Rogers and the Ghost of Mystery Rancho clearly succeeds. There was a time when Roy Rogers material was all highly collectible, including the Whitman Books and the Golden Mini-books, but that is all changing, too. So for those of you who fondly recall Roy and Trigger, I recommend you seek out this little item of nostalgia. Happy Trails!
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