What some
reviewers have to say about Van Holt’s writing:
“I had a
feeling that Van Holt…might actually be the successor to Zane Gray, a master
Western storysmith, whose novels set the style of a generation.” --Stern0
“Van Holt is
King of the Spaghetti Western…”
--Rarebird1
Van Holt wrote his first western
when he was in high school and sent it to a literary agent,
who soon returned
it, saying it was too long but he would try to sell it if Holt would cut out 16,000
words. Young Holt couldn't bear to cut out any of his perfect western,
so he threw it away and started
writing another one.
A draft notice interrupted his plans to become the next Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour.
A tour of duty as an MP stationed in South Korea was pretty
much the usual MP stuff except for the time he nabbed a North Korean spy and had to talk the dimwitted
desk sergeant out of letting
the guy go. A briefcase stuffed
with drawings of U.S. aircraft and the like only caused the overstuffed lifer
behind the counter
to rub his fat face, blink his bewildered eyes, and start
eating a big candy bar to console himself. Imagine
Van Holt's surprise
a few days later when he heard that same dumb sergeant
telling a group of new admirers how he himself had caught the famous spy one day when he was on his way to the mess hall.
Holt says there hasn't
been too much excitement since
he got out of the army, unless
you count the time he was attacked
by two mean young punks
and shot one of them in the big toe. Holt believes
what we need is punk control, not gun control.
After traveling
all over the West and Southwest in an aging Pontiac, Van Holt got tired of traveling the day he rolled into Tucson and he has been there ever since,
still dreaming of becoming the next Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour
when he grows up. Or maybe the next great mystery writer.
He likes to write mysteries
when he's not too busy writing westerns
or eating Twinkies.
Warning:
Reading a Van Holt western may make you want to get on a horse and hunt some
bad guys down in the Old West. Of course, the easiest and most enjoyable way to
do it is vicariously—by reading another Van Holt western.
Van
Holt writes westerns the way they were meant to be written.
