The Rider of Lost Creek

Rating:
Summary: Louis L'Amour Misses the Mark.
Review: Gunfighter Lance Kilkenny wades into a range war in the Live Oak country. To state the obvious, Western novels can be either entertaining or dull. Beware the predictable mixture as before product. This story begins with great promise, but falters along the way. The reader expects an exciting tale of cattlemen, barbed wire, and blazing sixguns in the Texas Cow Country. Oddly, a murder mystery gets in the way of the action. Since the plot can't decide between a range war and a whodunit, diminished reading pleasure results. There is some action and suspense, of course, but it loses its punch from a logical story perspective. L'Amour typically enriches his Westerns with enough authentic historical detail to stand above the familiar "a man, a horse, and a gun" formula. This novel is a second-string effort by the Master of the West. It may please dedicated fans, but casual readers beware. ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Louis L'Amour Misses the Mark.
Review: Gunfighter Lance Kilkenny wades into a range war in the Live Oak country. To state the obvious, Western novels can be either entertaining or dull. Beware the predictable mixture as before product. This story begins with great promise, but falters along the way. The reader expects an exciting tale of cattlemen, barbed wire, and blazing sixguns in the Texas Cow Country. Oddly, a murder mystery gets in the way of the action. Since the plot can't decide between a range war and a whodunit, diminished reading pleasure results. There is some action and suspense, of course, but it loses its punch from a logical story perspective. L'Amour typically enriches his Westerns with enough authentic historical detail to stand above the familiar "a man, a horse, and a gun" formula. This novel is a second-string effort by the Master of the West. It may please dedicated fans, but casual readers beware. ;-)

Rating:
Summary: Introduction to Kilkenny, lots of action
Review: Louis L'Amour's best known series are about the Sackett family. Most of the rest of his stories focus on a few characters that are rarely mentioned again in his books. "The Rider of Lost Creek" is an exception; this is the first of three books about Lance Kilkenny, one of the fastest gunfighters in the west. Kilkenny tries to stay out of sight and out of trouble, but when a friend of his gets into trouble, Kilkenny comes to straighten things out.

I once heard that Louis L'Amour kept two typewriters in his office. When he hit writer's block on one story, he would switch to the second typewriter. I wonder if this happened on this story because one of the secondary characters, Steve Lord, at the start of the story seems like a good guy, but later he turns out to be a bad guy.

I am often amazed at just how well Louis L'Amour's wrote. For example in chapter 7, to give us some background of Rusty Gates, one of the good guys, there is a paragraph that starts:

"His mother had died when he was sixteen, working to make ends meet. A year later, Rusty had lost a sister to the cholera, and one brother was killed by a bad horse. Another brother, at fourteen went to work on a riverboat, and his sister, at sixteen, married a doctor in Joplin. At sixteen, Rusty road away west to find what fortune might offer. He wanted land of his own, a few head of horses and cattle."

In just a few sentences Louis L'Amour reminds us just how hard life was a150 years ago, he shows us how alone Rusty is, and he lets us know that Rusty is the kind of guy who is trying to build civilization. It is well done.

The basic plot of the "The Rider of Lost Creek" is Kilkenny's friend, Mort Davis, is in trouble, two bigger cattle ranches look to be getting ready to wipe him out. Kilkenny shows up on the scene and realizes that there is more going on that meets the eye. This is more of your typical western movie; Kilkenny leaves the girl and rides off into the sunset.

This is a fun story, one of Louis L'Amour's best. If you enjoy a good western, this is a good one to read.



Rating:
Summary: A Well told tale
Review: The first of the three novels (that I know of) about Lance Kilkenny, an honest man with an unwanted reputation as a gunfighter. In this one he rides to help a friend who is cought in the middle of a range war, but as Kilkenny finds out, there is a lot more going on than just a range war. This is a good and entertaining novel which introduces the characters that apear again in "The Mountain Vally War" and "Kilkenny" This one I've read three times, already, and am sure to read it again and again in the years to come. It's a well told tale in Louis L'Amour's unequaled style and filled with well crafted characters. I reckomend it, also the other two Kilkenny novels, they to are more than worth every page.

Rating:
Summary: A Well told tale
Review: The first of the three novels (that I know of) about Lance Kilkenny, an honest man with an unwanted reputation as a gunfighter. In this one he rides to help a friend who is cought in the middle of a range war, but as Kilkenny finds out, there is a lot more going on than just a range war. This is a good and entertaining novel which introduces the characters that apear again in "The Mountain Vally War" and "Kilkenny" This one I've read three times, already, and am sure to read it again and again in the years to come. It's a well told tale in Louis L'Amour's unequaled style and filled with well crafted characters. I reckomend it, also the other two Kilkenny novels, they to are more than worth every page.