befor you buy this book make sure you can read spanish, the
reson I gave it 5 stars is because I'm sure it is good even if I can not read it.

"Pancho Villa" is written in a straight-forward style that is accessible and blunt, like a boy's adventure novel. I am not an expert on the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath, so I can't really comment on the accuracy of the book, but any reader should know ahead of time that the book is a veritable bloodbath. Villa and his men are portrayed as near psychopaths with only the most simplistic of political motivations. What they enjoy most is POWER and everything it brings - mostly free sex and the ability to kill at will. The author is certainly consistent - if not monotonous - in his presentation.

I've never read a James Carlos Blake novel before. I bought this, hesitantly, off a remainder shelf... Frankly, I'm amazed it was there. This is a tremendous book, replete with wonderful characters, an interesting plot, and wonderful atmosphere. The author has recreated the time of the Mexican revolution wonderfully, and the main character, and narrator, is someone you'd like to sit and have a conversation with...though not in a dark alley.

Rudy Fierro is there, throughout the whole of the Mexican revolution, and Pancho Villa's fight with the various people in power in Mexico City. The various people involved are tremendously depicted, and there's a parade of minor characters, some historical, some not. Both Ambrose Bierce and George Patton, not to mention John Pershing, make appearances. The author does a marvelous job of portraying men for whom it is nothing to shoot several hundred people, and then go have dinner.

Frankly, I was surprised by how good this book was. I found another one on the same remainder shelf, and after that I'll be hitting the used bookstore.

This is one of the greatest novels I've heard of Pancho Villa.

This is the third of Blake's books that I have read. "The Friends of Pancho Villa" was a truly stunning performance, as I said in my earlier review on Amazon. I then devoured "In the Rogue Blood." I liked in nearly as much as the first book, and that's saying a lot. Unfortunately. "Red Grass River", doesn't meet the very high standard set by the other two. Maybe because the others were so outstanding, I was expecting too much. This isn't a bad novel really. Blake is too fine a writer for that. But it is peopled with a collection of remarkably unlikable characters. As I got further into the story, I realized more and more that I didn't care about any of them. It wasn't only that they were unlikable, so are most of the characters in the great novels by James Ellroy. They were unsympathetic. I felt no tension, I didn't know what their goals were, and I didn't care if they made it or not. Frankly, I had a hard time finding a 'lead' figure in the story, someone to identify with and pull for. This book lacks passion. Oh, sure, it's full of action, adventure, and history, but it reads like a record of events. It has the feel that historical non-fiction sometimes has...a description without the feeling. That's strange from someone who painted "The Friends of Pancho Villa" with the rawest emotion and heart. James Carlos Blake is a fine writer, and I look forward to reading more of his work, but I recommend those who are new to his work start with "Pancho Villa" or "In The Rogue Blood." In my opinion, both are much better than this fairly unsatisfactory work.

You could say I've been lost in the Florida everglades for the past few years but it's always a pleasure to discover a new author that one enjoys reading, even belatedly, and James Carlos Blake is such an author for me. His novel, Red Grass River, comes at you like a runaway freight train with non-stop action. There are fist-fights, knifings, stompings, gun battles, stalkings, bank robberies, truck robberies, smuggling and even some steamy sex for good measure. The shotgun and the BAR seem favorite weapons in Blakes's prohibition-era Florida. We watch the tenacious Ashley gang thrive and survive as bootleggers, bank robbers and rum runners. They are as good with the ladies as well as their fists and, as such, incur the emnity of the Bakers, a family of tough lawmen, in a decade-long feud. The reader is soaked in the atmosphere of Florida from 1911 to 1924. You can hear the mosquitoes buzzing in your ears, feel the sweat pouring off your skin, see the gators waiting in the swamp grass. People refer to Blake as as writer of historical fiction and certainly Red Grass River makes another time and place come alive. Girls, this is a great guy book and would make the kind of gift the manly man or would-be manly man in your life will appreciate. I give this one four gators out of five.

Wow - If you like gritty historical fiction with a decidedly violent bent, this is for you. I've never written one of these reviews before, but felt compelled to. Blake's imagery is stunning, making the everglades come alive and drawing an astonishing picture of a tight-knit family of moonshiners, bootleggers, bank robbers and killers in early 20th century Florida, near the site where Miami is being carved from the swamp. The period details are great, and they blend seemlessly with the truly outstanding story. One of those rare books where both the plot and the writing are top notch. Can't wait to read Blake's other books.

This book is a collection of eight short stories, some are better than others but not one is bad. The first story is about a rich Mexican landlord (hacienda owner) of "noble" decesent from Spanish ancestors. He is not the worst guy in the world and he loves his wife and children. However, he has no social conciounse and does not question his elite and privliged status which comes at the expense of so many other people. He takes his blessed life for granted, thinking it the "natural" order of things. The peons on his estate live miserable lives of drugery while he lavishes in a fine mansion and does no work. Never does it occur to him that this situation is complety unjust. He views thieves and bandits who steal from him as scum but what other option do they have, either they become theives or stay peons on some rich landlords estate. He is ruthless with these thieves who steal only a fraction of his wealth but life eventually pays him back for his privilaged existence which is founded on such total social and economic injustice. Then again, the thieves are low lives without morales but the society they inhabit contributes to them becoming so evil. This story is another tale where the morality of the main character is ambigious as is the morality of that characters adversaries. The reader feels kind of sorry for the rich landlord in this story but also feels that he kind of deserved what he got. Their are two stories about Mexican illegal immigrants who pick fruit for money in America and live harsh lives of poverty. They are exploited and betrayed at every turn, even by members of their own race. "Texas Women Blues" is by far the most distrubing piece of writing I have read from Blake because instead of tough guys killing each other in filthy ways it documents the lonely and disturbed existence of a beautiful but neglacted and abused young women. She is betrayed over and over and also has bad luck. What happens to this poor young girl, she is only 17, is sick, her innocence and ignorance is used against her as a weapon by older, seasoned, men. They misled and trap her and she is misused and abused sexually. She is never the same after this and her whole life from this point on is warped because of one horrific night. Her misguided trust in strangers and her passive nature were unwise in such a cold, ruthless world run on exploitation. Her downward spiral is a terrible thing to behold because she really was a nice, decent, intelligent girl who would have had a bright future if she had any parental guidance. But instead she is cast into the world alone and unguared and the inevitable explotation of the innocent occures. My favorite story in this book however is the Ref, I cold really relate to this story because I identified with the main character. He was always second best to this guy he went to school with, Mato. This guy was no loser but he was always a step behind Mato who won every contest they had. This two were both boxers and they both wanted the same girl. They fight for her and the other guy wins and goes of with the girl and gets to have sex with her while the guy who losses the fight goes home alone all beat up. If that was not bad enough his ambitons to become a boxer are spoiled by the same guy. He fights him three times and losses all three times. And if that was not bad enough the girl that they fought over in high school comes back into the main characters life. At this point the main character has quit boxing and become a referee, which he is good at. The girl he knew from high school and him have a relationship but one night they run into Mato, who is now a boxing champion. History repeats itself and just like Mato took the main character's girl in high school he takes her again as adults. This girl is hot but untrustworthy, she has no loyality and is always looking for the bigger, better deal. She leaves the main character to go with Mato a second time. Once was bad enough, but to leave the main character twice, for the same guy, talk about rubbing salt in the wound and adding insult to injury! However, the main character, the ref, has the last laugh, because he is officating Mato's next title defense. When Mato brings the girl with him to ringside, the main character decides enough is enough. His revenge will similtaniously distrub and satisfy you, a characteristic common to all of Blake's writing I notice. This collection is great.

Aside from a little story about an earthquake that I just didn't get, I though this book was absolutely superb. The first story, called "Runaway Horses" (I think) had more action and insight than most 500-page novels. One reviewer said that Blake loves violence. I think the opposite is true. I believe he abhors it, and that's why he writes about it with such passion. This isn't like a sugar-coated news story. Instead, it's blood and guts and heartbreak and every emotion that goes with tragedy. It's like reading Cormac McCarthy after a careful editing by John Steinbeck to make every sentence glass smooth. A+++++

I hate to be the dissenting voice to all the gushing reviews for this book, but I thought it was weak at best. The plot was thin, the dialogue sophmoric, the character development was forced, and the overall portrait of the war was unrealistic. For example, the bushwackers that form the core of the book are almost invincible except at times that aid the story. In battles with even seasoned federal calvary, they rarely lose more than one or two men while wiping out dozens of enemies. They never suffer from hunger, even at a time when many farms were burned.

But, setting aside the lack of historical credibility, the book never evokes the feelings of the war or its human impact in a way that Charles Frazier did (I only bring up the comparision b/c of the quote on the paper edition). Bill, our main man here, never develops as a character- he just sort of lurches from phase to phase.

I wouldn't bother with this book- there are so many other novels of the Civil War worth your time.

THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT BOOK. I LOVED IT. IT TOOK ME BACK TO THAT TIME AND PLACE, AND GAVE ME A LOOK AT A GREAT HISTORICAL STORY. ONE REVIEWER WAS SO BIAS, I AM SURE HE WAS FOR THE OPPOSITE SIDE IN THIS STORY. HE MUST BE VERY UNHAPPY AND COWARDLY IN HIS APPROACHES TO NOVELS.

Some authors you read because the journey is better than the destination, but I find with Blake it's the opposite. His action and storytelling outweigh his poetry, although there is poetry, to be sure. He writes with a passion and moves with a purpose. And yes, as other reviews state here, he does not disappoint.

This book is written in installments: first-person narratives by people who know the main character. Most of them are only a few pages long, and few of the narrators repeat. Thus, it's impossible to really sympathize with any of them. The main character himself, gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, is hard to like: we never get into his head, and from the outside he looks like just another gangster. The reader sympathizes briefly when he's wounded and imprisoned, only to be put off when he commits his next act of mindless violence or drunken stupidity. The post-Civil War American West, as presented by the author, whacks the reader over the head with violence, lawlessness, and what I felt were rather gratuitous scenes of sex with prostitutes. I'm all for "gritty" historical fiction, but here it sometimes seemed like the author was just trying to show off. Without emotional content, grit is just an irritant. Having said all that, the book is intelligently written and apparently well researched, and it might be somebody else's cup of tea more than it is mine.

There was nothing like the American West in the history of the world and figures like Hardin exemplify it; deadly, brave, sad and foolish all at once. His death seemed a relief because by 1895 there was no place left for the bravado of a gunslinger who would draw over an insult.

I found the writing format, the telling through other's eyes, less engaging and certainly less tasty than Blake's current style.

This was some book ! Absolutely outstanding in every respect - as a story, in its style, very exciting, excellent dialect, really funny in spots, ..... Chapter by chapter I went from hating the arrogant ... (John Wesley Hardin), to wanting to be a Hardin. If he really was as portrayed in this book (which I doubt), he was mostly the kind of person I respect - leave him alone and he'll buy you drinks all night long and otherwise give you the shirt off his back. Meddle in his business, get in his face, or harm his family and he'll whip you or kill you. Now don't get me wrong. Any reader would try to see where they fit in, in that day and time and I am pretty much left with the sad conclusion that I would have probably been a sorry, boot-licking peddler of some kind . . . . not a Hardin.

I'm a big James Carlos Blake fan and it is painful to have to give A World of Thieves a mixed review. If this book had been written by another author and I had not read Red Grass River, I certainly would be singing the praises of this book. However, I know that Blake can do much better and really all he has done with this book is rewrite Red Grass River, moving the setting from the Everglades to Angola Prison in Louisianna and West Texas.

If you are new to Blake, do yourself a favor and read Red Grass River or In the Rogue Blood and wait until this one comes out in paperback. I think Blake does a tremendous job in recreating the underbelly of past American eras. His characters tend to be people living on the edge, pushed to violence by the forces of society. Rugged individualists. People who will kill savagely without missing a beat. But also people who have a tender heart towards their families and even complete strangers. One minute the protagonist is holding up a mom and pop grocery--the next he is helping an old man change a tire along the side of a hot dusty Texas highway.

There are no easy answers or platitudes in Blake's books. Violence usually begets violence. And if you need happy, conventional endings, look elsewhere. But if you like to turn over a rock and see what's crawling underneath, then I can highly recommend Blake's work.

As a big fan of Blake I was surely disappointed that he's covering the same ground as in the past and covered it better in the past. The same relationships exist between the characters, their careers and their women as in Red Grass River. The action passages offer some bright spots (loved the prison break), but they appear between cliche scenes and his desire to show you he's done his homework on all things 1920's (the egg in the radiator, song titles, ginger jake etc.) but what bothers me most is this piece just doesn't seem to have any soul. Here's to hoping the next one has some.

After the death of his parents, a young, naive Sonny LaSalle gives up his education and career potential to follow his uncles' life of armed robbery and ensuing violence. When a bank robbery goes awry, Sonny is sent to prison. Though he gets a second chance, he never considers a lawful existence. He embraces his uncles' criminal code of conduct without question. He attaches himself to an abused woman he meets by chance. Though a likable character, Sonny achieves his limited emotional fulfillment from sexuality and violence.

This is a well written novel, reminiscent of Bonnie & Clyde. It is a study in loyalty and morality (or lack thereof) in the wilds of Texas and Louisiana in the late 1920s. It was a solid read, albeit one that was at times a bit depressing. Blake doesn't celebrate the violence - he reports it in writing that is crisp and spare, and develops characters that live on, long after the book is closed.

This novel is the story of James Rudolph Youngblood, but you'll call him Jimmy Youngblood and drop the Rudolph if you know what's good for you! His father was Rodolfo Fierro, a Mexican revolutionary who ran with Pancho Villa during the decade long Mexican Revolution. Fierro was Villa's chief executionar and one day he killed 300 enemy prisoners in about 3 hours with a gatling gun. After that he crossed the border into Texas and visited a whorehouse for some much needed relaxation. He chooses a blue eyed, fair skinned prositute for the night and although neither of them can speak the other's language an undeniable and powerful connection is formed between them based soley on mutaual, instinctual, sexual desire. For reasons she does not herself understand the white prostitute, Ava, removes her contraception device during their night of sexual play and becomes pregant with Fierro's child. Fierro himslef of course left before before day break and goes back to fight the Mexican revolution and die his inevitably violent death, never knowing about his bastard son by an anglo whore. Ava, the white protstitute, decides that she wants to keep her child and agrees to marry a customer of hers, Cullen Youngblood, who keeps pestering her with the offer of marriage. At first she kept refusing but once she learns of her pregant condition she accepts Cullen Youngblood's offer on condition that she be allowed to keep the child even though it is not Cullen's. She even tells him that the child is probably Mexican. At first he is upset but decides to marry her anyway. Thus in such bizzare and unlikely cirumstances is Jimmy Youngblood brought into the world. Of course Ava does not tell anyone who Jimmy's father really is even though she secretly takes pride in the fact that her boy's father was such a notirious killer of men. Jimmy knows nothing of his mother's past as a whore and he does not even know she is his mother, he thinks his mother died giving birth to him and that Ava is his aunt. Jimmy has the brown skin of a Mexican but the blue eyes of an anglo. He grows up on Cullen Youngblood's ranch with his half brother Reuben. His life is uneventful except for the fact that he is so good at shooting it is scary. Eventually he runs into trouble with the law and is forced to run away from home and make his own way in the world. He ends up working for an Italian gangster named Rose Maceo who runs all organized crime, gambling, prositution, bootlegging, etc. in Galvaston County, Texas. The novel mostly takes place in 1936. Jimmy is the chief enforcer for Rose Maceo, he is the number 1 assassin for the organization. Jimmy is always beating, crippling, or killing someone but it is always someone who deserves it. His life changes when he encounters a beautiful young Mexican girl, Daniella, who herself is on the run from a rich but evil Mexican hacienda owner. This Mexican hacienda owner, Ceaser Cavalres, kidnapped Daniella from Texas and married her in Mexico on his extensive estate. At first she was awed by his wealth and agreed to marry him but she soon realizes that she is nothing but a prisoner in a gilded cage. She escapes to America and comes to Galveston and meets Jimmy Youngblood. Meanwhile, Ceaser Cvaleres has sent his henchmen after her in order to kidnap her and bring her back to him. It does not take a genius to figure out what happens next, let the mayhem and killing begin! Some nice plot twists for Ceaser Cavalres has a connection with Jimmy Youngblood's past even a experienced and savy reader wont see coming. Lots of moral ambiguity as their is no "good guy" in this novel. Even the "bad guy" Ceaser Cavleres has his sympathic momements. See Rodolfo Fierro, Jimmy's father, might have been a genuine revolutionary fighting for the poor and opressed in a fascist society but he was also a bloodthirsty convict who enjoyed mass murder. Ceaser Cavleres might be a tyranical, elitist land owner who makes his profits off of the hard labor of the peon but even he has feelings and needs. Jimmy himself is sympathic yet he is also somewhat evil as he kills and maims people on a reguar basis. His father may have been a revolutionary but he certainly is not for he works for a pure capitalist gangster. At the same time he is not as blood thirsty as his father. Complex and belivible characters make their choices in a world not sharply contrasted in black and white but like real life is a muddle of different tones of gray. This is no sappy love story, someone dies every 10 pages or so. Not Blake's best but far from his worst.

While entertaining, I found this book too similar in plot to "A World Of Thieves", Blake's last novel. Both books, moreover, are substantially shorter than most of Blake's prior outstanding works. I hope this does not mean that we can look forward to Blake cranking out short, mediocre,and formulaic books in the future in order to cash in on his reader's loyalty (ala Larry McMurtry). Nevertheless, if you like Blake (and there is very much to like) you will undoubtedly enjoy this book.

Is it merely coincidence that the anti-heroes in James Carlos Blake's ultra-violent passion plays are constantly crossing state lines, fences, deserts and rivers to reach their fates?

Don't count on it. Mankind's greatest stories from Homer to Hemingway have required their heroes to cross perilous thresholds, from their safe, familiar worlds into a place that would challenge their bodies, hearts and minds. To fail is to die; to succeed is to change irreversibly.

And blood is almost always spilled. Blake has merely elevated bloodshed to a fine art.

Blake's newest contribution to historical crime fiction is "Under the Skin," a borderland noir about love and crime in Depression-era coastal Texas and northern Mexico. But the real borders it crosses are not just geographic.

The bulk of the story is set in gritty and bohemian Galveston in the first few days of 1936, but it really begins 22 years earlier, when Pancho Villa and his most bloodthirsty captain visit an El Paso whorehouse and plant the seed of destiny.

Blake was born in Mexico and raised in Texas, and is among the brightest stars in historical fiction, particularly where bad men make good stories. All his books have been set in the turbulent times between the dawn of Manifest Destiny and the Depression, wherever humans could inflict the most inhumanity on each other.

"Under the Skin" is brutal and beautiful. Blake's savage crime saga isn't driven only by the body count nor its cold-blooded cruelty. What makes this book -- and Blake's others -- truly horrific are passages of pure poetry and the haunting beauty of Blake's writing.

Few writers can skillfully blend the poetic and the perverse, as if the esoteric and animalistic sides of the brain shared an impermeable border. But as Blake has shown, borders are made to be crossed: John Gregory Dunne ("True Confessions") and James Ellroy ("My Dark Places") are among the most seasoned travelers to cross that particular boundary, but Blake lives there.

His unflinching prose drives stake through fainter hearts, but Blake explores dark borderlands of the human spirit. He has rightfully been hailed as one of the most original writers in America today, and is certainly one of the bravest. "Under the Skin" and his other previous stories all have the seductive fascination of a beautiful song scrawled in blood.

Blake is not a bad writer but Cormac McCarthy is magnificent. It is completely obvious that Blake has read and somewhat modeled this book after McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian is a feverish nightmare filled with mind-numbing violence. Blood Meridian is men as roaming wolves killing all that brings them profit, making us wonder about man's true nature nature - beast or not?, is war holy? Blood Meridian has no sentimentality. Blood Meridian messed with my head and even made me get rid of a gun I had. Blood Meridian is almost biblical in its style and themes. Blood Meridian is a work of art(as all books are), and a freaking masterpiece (a word I don't use lightly). McCarthy will be regarded as a writer in the company of Faulkner and Hemingway one day by the general public as he is now regarded by many of his fans, including me.

So. That Blake ripped a master work irked me. Is it a bad book? Nope. I kind of liked it but it is a simple adventure tale with a lot of blood, sex and violence. If you like that sort of thing, buy it, read it. But if you have money for only one book, buy Blood Meridian.

Blake is a wonderful stylist. His vivid imagery and stark, eloquent language breathe life into this book and make it outstanding. Readers who enjoy Cormac McCarthy's books will find this to be similar in many of its good qualities.

In the Rogue Blood is the story of two brothers in the 1840's. They travel West and get mixed up in the Mexican War; one ends up fighting for Mexico in the San Patricios, while the other joins a band of Mexican scouts fighting for the United States. The end, as one might expect from Blake, is not a happy one.

It's a tribute to Blake's writing that I was able to enjoy the book despite his characters. They're walking lizard brains, constantly sleeping with whores and getting in pointless fights. However period they may be, they're not very interesting people. The plot bogs down in the middle, when the characters seem to be meaninglessly repeating their brutal behavior ad nauseam, but picks up when they become involved in the war. Female characters here exist primarily for the use of men, though one could argue that part of the tragedy of John and Edward is that they are never capable of comprehending their wild mother and sister.

Much of 1840's America as presented by Blake seems accurate to me, though his version is certainly a very bleak one, sometimes melodramatically so. This is an ugly West, full of cruelty and deformity, with malice towards all, and sometimes the sheer ugliness of everything taxed my suspension of disbelief.

Nevertheless, this is a powerful tragedy and a brilliantly styled book, which I strongly recommend.

In the Rogue Blood is the story of two brothers in pre-Civil War America,1838-1850, who were raised in the Flordia swamps. They also have a sister who they are both attracted to. Their mother and father are both criminal grifter types. Their father is a man killing fugitive and their mother was a prositute at the age of 12, but not because she was forced into it, only because she liked it. The story of how their mother and father met is an illustration and demonstration of the dysfunctional family structure in which these two brothers grew up, but I will not give it away in this review because it would reveal too much of the story. Suffice to say that their mother and father met in bizzare and unhealthy circumstances and that the two boy's father did not know about his new wife's past sexual activities as a prostitute when he married her. Their mother and father despise each other and the boys grow up in this atmosphere of poisonous mutual hatred. Eventually they are forced to flee Flordia because the law is after them and they run to New Orleans. Their father is dead, I wont say how or why, and their mother and sister are gone to god knows where. This turn of events depresses the brothers much less than one might imagine and they continue on their directionless journey and get into more trouble. They get split up in New Orleans and in order to escape the law one brother, John, joins the U.S. Army, which is on its way to Texas and Mexico to fight the Mexican War. The other brother, Edward, continues to wander on his own and joins up with a band of Indian hunters who kill any Indian they can find, women, children, etc., and scalp them. An Indian scalp can be sold to the U.S. government because the U.S. government wishes to get rid of the Indian population. Edward and John eventually end up on different sides of the Mexican War for different reasons that have nothing to do with ideology or morality but only circumstantual conveince. So many people die in this book it is unbeliviable, maybe Blake's most violent but I have yet to read "The Friends of Poncho Villa". This book exiciting and fast paced and honest about American History.