In Dodge City and the territories on west, there's just one way to handle the killers and the spoilers, and that's with a U.S. Marshall and the smell of Gunsmoke…
Starting here on Monday, I'll be releasing a chapter a day of a Western novel based on the old Gunsmoke series. 34 chapters, 34 days, and 1 man trying to bring order to the wild violence of the West.
This novel was something I wrote several years back as a gift for my father. He raised me on Old Time Radio – the Shadow, the Lone Ranger, the Green Hornet. And as I got old enough, I became a huge fan of the radio version of Gunsmoke. (I have to confess, I've never watched the TV series, as William Conrad will always be my Marshall Dillon.)
Listening to the series, I was struck by how much the gruff tone of Conrad's narration felt like a Robert B. Parker novel. As a huge Spenser fan (and also a fan of Parker's handful of Westerns), I decided to try an experiment. Taking five episodes of the radio series by Norman MacDonnell, John Meston, and Walter Newman, I interwove them into a single novel. I originally called it HOMECOMING, but here I've renamed it WELCOME TO DODGE. The notion is that Matt Dillon has returned to Dodge City, his youthful home, to take up the job of Marshall for the first time. He's spent years traveling, working on both sides of the law. But now he's back, and trying to be the man Dodge needs.
I have to say, it was a lot of fun, and I was very pleased by the result. It's not something I could ever publish – I don't have the rights, and wouldn't know who to talk to about getting them. But I can post it here, as nothing more than Fan Fiction.
So when you're done with THE FOUR EMPERORS and are feverishly waiting the next chapter in the life of Pietro and Cesco, take a few minutes out of each day to enjoy GUNSMOKE: WELCOME TO DODGE.
