Max Brand

Black Jack Annotated Max Brand

Black Jack is a classic western action novel by American writer Max Brand. In this classic western story, the son of a notorious outlaw is adopted into a wealthy, law-abiding family as an infant after his father is killed in an attempted robbery. The raucous beginning of Brand's Western is traditional. A gunfighter is shot dead in the street. However, when spinster Elizabeth Cornish takes his baby to raise and wagers with her brother that blood will not "will out", that Jack's son will not be a murderer - a fascinating story of nature versus nurture emerges.