The Puzzle of Sidewinder Gulch — Clarence Budington Kelland

THE CLASSIC SATURDAY EVENING POST ROMANTIC MYSTERY ? FIRST TIME EVER IN BOOK FORM![Kelland is] a writer of distinction. --The Detroit NewsHis mysteries are on the ball. --Criminal RecordBefore he began writing, Post editor Ben Hibbs warned Kelland, don't have too many cockeyed characters. Whereupon, said Kelland, I turned out seven installments about a good guy surrounded by cockeyed characters.What happens when a Korean War vet recovering from serious injuries wins a ghost town in a contest, meets a hard-riding, gun-toting cowgirl, and is threatened by three dangerous people all in a few short days? Answer: Cock-eyed characters, pixilated dialogue, zany romance and heart-stopping suspense. In short, everything Kelland fans love about Kelland noels. Based in part on real events ? and set in a real ghost town that was actually given away (by The Saturday Evening Post) in a real contest, a place you can still visit today.Waldo. Emerson Whitelaw was pleasantly surprised when he won a supposedly worthess Arizona ghost town named Sidewinder Gulch in a write a jingle contest. He was less pleasantly surprised when the glowering Hugo Pung offered him six thousand dollars for the deed ? and threatened his life if he refused. Was Sidewinder Gulch somehow more valuable than Whitelaw believed. So he took laconic, plain-spoken New Englanders Habakkuk Ware and his wife Melinna, who had raised him after his parent's death set off for Arizona. When they arrived he met the rear end of a cow backing toward him in a clear state of hysteria, with ranch woman Gwendolin Carver attached to a rope at its head. You underfed, skinny-legged dude, she said to Whitelaw, Grab hold of this rope and help! Everything he said and did after that only seemed to irritate her more. That night, self-styled land-speculator Miles Winter, a speculator and his seductive gal-friend, Mona Avery, showed up and made him an even bigger offer for the deed to Sidewinder Gulch. A few hours later a shot rang out.Thus begins one of Clarence Budington Kelland's finest, and rarest novels, previously published only as a seven part serial in the legendary and bestselling magazine of its era, The Saturday Evening Post. Now in book form for the first time.Reader bonus: How The Puzzle of Sidewinder Gulch came to be written; photos of the real Sidewinder Gulch, Yesterday and Today; sample chapters from three of Kelland's most famous mysteries, Miss Drugget Rides the Train, The Cardiff Giant Affair, and Murder And The Key Man.