We were thinking Nard Jones was a pseudonym, but it seems the poor guy grew up with that name. Well, ole’ Nard could take solace in being a decent writer. He published historical nonfiction as well as novels, usually set in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. His 1955 effort Ride the Dark Storm, for which you see a Gold Medal edition above with Robert Maguire cover art, isn’t about a guy with weird terminology for having sex, but about a logging community in the Puget Sound region of Washington.
Main character Jim Fraser owns a tract of forest and plans to sell it to Caxton Enterprises, a giant paper-making company. The operation is run by siblings Willie and Arrow Caxton. When Arrow crashes her car near Fraser’s mountain cabin he drags her from the wreckage, saving her life, though her brother is killed. That death shifts the balance at Caxton, and Fraser immediately sees dollar signs. He think his trees are worth money that can set him up for life, and now the one person most responsible for whether he can make a deal is in his debt.
Because the tale is set in logging country it often has the feel of a western or frontier novel. You get a sense of that blending here:
It was the kind of rain that meant plenty of business for the saloons and the state liquor shops, for the hotels and rooming houses and the women in the squalid shacks at the south end of town. It was the kind of rain that meant plenty of mischief afoot in Port Puget. The wiseacres of the town always pretended it was simply because nobody could work outside for long in such weather. They said it was because the buckers and fallers, the tong men, the whistle punks, and the truck drivers found things much more comfortable in a bar at such times. But Jim Fraser was born and raised in Puget country and knew better than that. He knew there was no trade or profession around Puget that had a patent on celebration when the lead skies merged with the spindrift of the troubled Strait of Juan de Fuca. He knew that something strange could happen to any man.
If you take “state liquor stores” and “truck drivers” out of that paragraph it’s basically western. Jones had a plan. He knew the history of the Pacific Northwest and reasoned he could sell novels set in its traditional logging country if he adhered to the crime fiction formula. He added an unusual femme fatale, a reprehensible villain, and uncountable wealth to fight over. The fact that the latter is embodied by a massive stand of old growth forest that must be destroyed to realize profit may or may not be an ecological commentary. If so, bonus points.
Fraser finds himself being drawn deeper into Arrow Caxton’s world than is comfortable for him, whether boardroom or bedroom. His presence infuriates the leader of the executive boy’s club who had planned to run Caxton Enterprises as he sees fit. He needs to get rid of Fraser if his plans are to be realized. But Fraser isn’t going anywhere without a fight. Ride the Dark Storm isn’t perfect but the unique setting works in its favor, making for a decent-not-great read. It’s certainly worth a flyer at a reasonable price.
