Sunday, July 04, 2010
The Western Novels of Elmore Leonard
Elmore wrote nine westerns between 1953 and 1998. Four were published in the 1950s, (The Bounty Hunters, The Law at Randado
, Escape from Five Shadows
and Last Stand at Saber River
.) ,
One in the Sixties, (Hombre). Three in the Seventies (Valdez Is Coming , Forty Lashes Less One and Gunsights), and one in the late Nineties, (Cuba Libre.)
Technically, Cuba Libre is a historical novel, but Elmore describes it as a “tropical western”.
Read about Elmore’s Westerns below.
The Bounty Hunters
The old Apache renegade Soldado Viejo is hiding out in Mexico, and the Arizona Department Adjutant has selected two men to hunt him down. One—Dave Flynn—knows war, the land, and the nature of his prey. The other is a kid lieutenant named Bowers. But there’s a different kind of war happening in Soyopa. And if Flynn and his young associate choose the wrong allies—and the wrong enemy—they won’t be getting out alive.
The Law at Randado
Phil Sundeen thinks Deputy Sheriff Kirby Frye is just a green local kid with a tin badge. And when the wealthy cattle baron’s men drag two prisoners from Frye’s jail and hang them from a high tree, there’s nothing the untried young lawman can do about it. But Kirby’s got more grit than Sundeen and his hired muscles bargained for. They can beat the boy and humilate him, but they can’t make him forget the jog he has sworn to do. The cattleman has money, fear, and guns on his side, but Kirby Frye’s the law in this godforsaken corner of the Arizona Territories. And he’ll drag Sundeen and his killers straight to hell himself to prove it.
Escape from Five Shadows
No one breaks out of the brutal convict labor camp at Five Shadows—but Corey Bowen is ready to die trying. They framed him to put him in there, and beat him bloody and nearly dead after his last escape attempt. He’ll have help this time—from a lady with murder on her mind and a debt to pay back. Because freedom isn’t enough for primed dynamite like Bowen. And he won’t leave the corrupt desert hell behind him until a few scores are settled…permanently.
Last Stand at Saber River
A quiet, haunted man, Paul Cable walked away from a lost cause hoping to pick up where he left off. But things have changed in Arizona since he first rode out to go fight for the Confederacy. Two brothers—Union men—have claimed his spread and they’re not about to give it back, leaving Cable and his family no place to settle in peace. It seems this war is not yet over for Paul Cable. But no one’s going to take away his land and his future—not with their laws, their lies, or their guns.
Hombre
John Russell has been raised as an Apache. Now he’s on his way to live as a white man. But when the stagecoach passengers learn who he is, they want nothing to do with him—until outlaws ride down on them and they must rely on Russell’s guns and his ability to lead them out of the desert. He can’t ride with them, but they must walk with him or die.
Valdez Is Coming
They laughed at Roberto Valdez and then ignored him. But when a dark-skinned man was holed up in a shack with a gun, they sent the part-time town constable to deal with the problem—and made sure he had no choice but to gun the fugitive down. Trouble was, Valdez killed an innocent man. And when he asked for justice—and some money for the dead man’s woman—they beat Valdez and tied him to a cross. They were still laughing when Valdez came back. And then they began to die…
Forty Lashes Less One
The hell called Yuma Prison can destroy the soul of any man. And it’s worse for those whose damning crime is the color of their skin. The law says Chiricahua Apache Raymond San Carlos and black-as-night former soldier Harold Jackson are murderers, and they’ll stay behind bars until they’re dead and rotting. But even in the worst place on Earth, there’s hope. And for two hard and hated inmates—first enemies, then allies by necessity—it waits at the end of a mad and violent contest ... on a bloody trail that winds toward Arizona’s five most dangerous men.
Gunsights
Brendan Early and Dana Moon have tracked renegade Apaches together and gunned down scalp hunters to become Arizona legends. But now they face each other from opposite sides of what newspapers are calling The Rincon Mountain War. Brendan and a gang of mining company gun thugs are dead set on running Dana and “the People of the Mountain” from their land. The characters are unforgettable, the plot packed with action and gunfights from beginning to end.
