Foxx! By Zack Tyler

Foxx! was an adult western series that had six entries from 81-82 and was written by Mel Marshall under the pseudonym Zack Tyler.

I picked this one up because I liked the premise of a detective in an old west setting. I imagined a crossover of sorts, like a Mickey Spillane private detective in early 1900s San Francisco with a Western flair.

So right off, that’s not what this is. Foxx works for C&K Railroad as their in-house detective. That’s cool though, trains are fun. A hobo has found a bomb under the tracks of the railway and Foxx is sent out to investigate. There is a brief shootout with a mystery sniper and Foxx single handedly diffuses the bomb. He now has to figure out who planted the bomb and why.

The writing was very dry. The dialogue was extremely basic. Almost to the point where it sounded like it was a young adult novel. The titular character is a stern personality but he’s also very proper. I started to get the feeling this was either a YA book or it was aimed toward Christians or Mormons or something. I was a little worried about the cover art also as this was prime adult western era and the cover seemed to be a little tame. I mean, the art looks great, don’t get me wrong, but it looked kind of rated G even with the “red-hot women” blurb on the cover.

Everything putters along plot wise. It’s slow for sure. Many in-depth descriptions of the terrain, his surroundings, where his boots were made etc. It was too much. It dragged everything down to a crawl. The terminology and vernacular of old west is, I’m assuming, on point though. He really gives you all the slang and terms of antiquated machinery. It was impressive. I imagine that anyone who is really into Westerns would love it. Me, I just wanted some light atmosphere, a bit of crime, sleaze, gun battles and violence.

I almost quit about a quarter way through and then something strange happened. The widow who is new in town asks Foxx to see her home. He abides as he’s a gentleman. She invites him in for some hot toddy…and then grabs his boner. And then immediately after that he goes to an abandoned building where he has kept a prisoner overnight who he has hand cuffed and stripped naked and shoved into a tiny closet for twelve hours with no food or water.

So! This is an adult Western. But honestly even those parts were dry. Ba-dump-bum. Foxx as a lead character is unoriginal. He is the toughest, smartest guy, has an ever-hard dick, sleeps for two hours a night and is never groggy and of course he was raised by Native Americans which gives him an edge in hunting and torture. There is nothing that makes him stand out from his fellow ever-hard adult Western contemporaries.

Everything in this book was so just so bland. I found myself drifting off when the descriptions would go on and on. I realized I missed three whole paragraphs and would skim back over to make sure I didn’t miss anything important, and I never did.

There is an interesting scene where he gets raped at gunpoint by a mystery lady. HA! Is that supposed to turn us dudes on?

Also, there is a ridiculous hot hair balloon climax scene that takes us back into YA territory.

Kind of disappointing. I’d probably still pick up the others in the series if I ran across them though. Who knows, maybe it gets better. But at this point, he’s definitely no Scout.

Dell 1981