To most readers, Louis L'Amour is the quintessential writer of
westerns; few know that among his 118 published volumes are stories set
far from sagebrush country. In this volume of 10 previously
uncollected short stories written early in his career and issued now,
13 years after his death, with an afterword by his son, Beau, L'Amour's
broader interests are on display. Two of the tales, "Red Butte
Showdown" and "The Cactus Kid" do indeed evoke the frontier settings
L'Amour is best known for, but three of them, "Making It the Hard Way,"
"Fighter's Fiasco" and "The Ghost Fighter," are about prizefighting and
indicate the influence of writers like Jack London and Ernest
Hemingway. No less surprising in their modern California settings are
"A Friend of a Hero" and "The Vanished Blonde," which echo Raymond
Chandler and Dashiell Hammett; Hemingway's themes are again reflected
in "May There Be a Road" and "Wings Over Brazil," two yarns set against
the volatile backdrop of war and revolution far from the purple
mountains of Montana or the desolate plains of the Dakotas. The title
story (never before published) unfolds in a rough-riding Tibet. Though
influenced by other writers, each story follows L'Amour's patented
formula, evident already in this early work. A tense situation is
revealed, brief characterization and background follow, then the tale
is tied up in a sequence of hard-hitting action sequences. These are
professionally written stories, minor gems collected from the dustier
corners of L'Amour's oeuvre.
