Ghost Stories of the Old West

Geoff Hamilton, a former columnist for the Queen’s Journal, is a
Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

Ghost Stories of the Old West brings together 30 tales arranged into six
categories: Boomtowns and Gold Rushes; Cowboys and Indians; Forts; Inns,
Houses, Hotels; Go West, Young Man; and Working Men. The stories are
“based on historical events particular to the lands west of the 100th
meridian, all, to the best of [the author’s] knowledge, finding roots
in actual events.” The narratives cover many of the usual suspects in
North American frontier history—the Pony Express, the Alamo, the
legend of the Qu’Appelle River Valley—along with some more offbeat
material involving prisoners, miners, murderous innkeepers, and Chinese
maids.

These stories are sophisticated enough to provide light entertainment
for adults, while simple enough—as well as being free of detailed
violence or excessively frightening material—to be appropriate for
very young readers. Imagined conversations and (sometimes inspired)
authorial embellishment help enliven the tales. Asfar has a good deal of
colourful material to work with here, and this collection is
consistently enjoyable. One can imagine these stories being read out
loud to great effect. The prose is straightforward and gripping, though
weakened at times by a tendency to rely on a few stock phrases (e.g.,
“rotgut whiskey,” “beyond exhaustion”). The black-and-white
photographs do a nice job of evoking the spooky past of the Old West.
Some sloppy editing detracts just a little from the overall quality of
the book.