The Broken Gun by Louis L’Amour

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I see a well illustrated old west themed cover to a Louis L’Amour book, the title ‘The Broken Gun’ and I plunge into a novel that instantly confuses me. It takes a few pages to realize when in time this novel falls. There is no mention of it. There is a mention of 90 years before…but, before what?

By the third page the Korean War is mentioned.

Involving stroytelling, time should be established in some way off the top if a story about different time periods is being unraveled. Instead L’Amour leaves the reader at drift trying to figure out what’s going on.

Making the early part of the book worse is L’Amour’s poor approach to literally illustrating an urban setting.

Once the novel goes out to ranch lands of sand and rock, L’Amour hits his stride in describing the setting. But, time gets away from him again. L’Amour clearly had trouble with writing about his present.

A number of things bother me about the writing of this book. One involved an over long chase near the end. Another was one sentence involving a character that vanishes. Though clearly not the intent, the line is more surreal than consistent with the rhythm of the story.

The story is shakey, at best, and the conclusion over obvious.

Bottom line: I don’t recommend this book. 4 out of ten.

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Showdown at Yellow Butte by Louis L’Amour

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I noticed this with a few other L’Amour books I’ve read: Within twenty pages the reader finds themselves dumped in a sea of names with little to no background as to who they are. In this case it was worse for a couple names are similar. Worse, as the book goes on, some switch from good to bad and vice versa. Many characters are hardly explained throughout the book except for what side they are. I had trouble keeping track of who was through throughout the book. Here’s further credit I can give for the William Johnstone clan and their westerns that are often peppered with lots of characters as I’ve yet to get so confused.

However, I thought the story was a good one even if I did get lost at times. There’s a good mystery that can keep you guessing until the end and plenty of shootouts. I kinda wish L’Amour had done more with series, because I do like the main character, Kedrick, and wish there was more of him. Especially outside the Western genre as referred to in the book.

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This book makes 30 books read so far this year.