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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Palabras, Mike. Mike Palabras was created by the Spanish author Jorge Gubern and appeared in a number of stories in Novelas del Oeste, at least twelve novels, and a comic book from at least 1944 to at least 1947.

Miguel “Mike” Palabras (née Miguel Segovia) is a wandering cowboy adventurer modeled on Father Brown. Palabras travels around the western frontier of America and into Mexico, solving crimes and plots against various governments and helping young people be with their true loves. Palabras claims to be a teacher at a school in California, although he is always a long way from where his school is supposed to be. He is fat and bald and apparently easy-going, but solves his cases with skill and efficiency and always without any violence–that is, he is never violent, and those who turn violence against him pay for it.

* I'm including the Mike Palabras stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia list because they're well-written. As with Padre Metri, so with Mike Palabras: the worst aspects of the Father Brown stories have been removed by the author, Jorge Gubern, and replaced with thoughts and actions more typical of liberation theology, a lack of bigotry altogether, and more dangerous situations for Palabras to operate in rather than the rarefied air of Father Brown's life. The stories read well, are plotted well, and tackles the issue of violence quite well. 

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