R M Hankins' The Man from Wyoming - Western Novel Review

Cover of R M Hankins' The Man from Wyoming Bantam 1949

Originally published by MacRae-Smith Company in 1941 under the title of "Lonesome River Range",   R M Hankins' "The Man from Wyoming" was published in 1949 by Bantam. The novel is a mystery story similar to Wilkie Collins' "The Moonstone" in which a woman witnesses her fiancé stealing a valued jewel and then spurns him without explaining why. Unbeknownst to either of them, he stole it while sleepwalking. So, while she did see him steal it, he's baffled by her behavior and years later is vindicated when a detective discovers the truth.

R M Hankins' odd dedication.

In R M Hankins' "The Man from Wyoming" story, the crime committed is not theft but murder.  A newlywed wife witnesses her husband murder her brother...or does she? The grand jury decides there's not enough evidence & his wife can't testify against him. But that doesn't keep the whole town from ostracizing him and his wife from spurning him.  So eventually he lights a shuck and disappears. Then two years later, a man who looks very much like her husband (only with a missing tooth and a scar) hires on at the ranch. Is he her husband's doppelgänger? Or is he her husband? Is he trying to cheat her out of her ranch? Or is he trying to save her ranch? There were so many twists and turns, first I was certain of one thing, and then certain of the opposite. His wife went a bit soft in the head when she witnessed him killing her brother so we're never sure how sane she is, although, at times she seems saner than and more intuitive and observant than anyone else in the story. 

The story is told in first-person which is my least-liked writing perspective. Although corny at times, it is an interesting story. It's just too bad it's weighed down with too much dialogue. It's also hampered by an overload of jargon & witty old-timer & one up-man-ship tales that don't support or advance the story.

In addition, the inconsistent morals are baffling. The woman hates her husband with a passion when she believes he's a murderer, but his look-alike comes along and is proven to be the real murderer and yet she's all for getting the ranch hands together to spring him from jail if he's convicted. Why didn't she support her husband likewise despite the fact she believed him to be the killer? And the narrator, who also hates him because he's a "killer" and even wants to shoot him on sight, calls the lookalike "the best man in the territory". Baffling.


I suppose if you don't think too hard, it's a good story.

Back Cover of R M Hankins' The Man from Wyoming

Cigarettes lit up 2
Gunplay 2
Pipes lit up 5
Pistol whippings 1
Fistfights 2
Murder 1
Bushwhackings 1

Mobile Version