Lewis B. Patten (1915–1981)

Lew Stark was raised by a very wealthy rancher, who had unknown to Luke, killed his father. J. W. Regal had four sons of his own but Luke was his favourite. The other sons did not like ranch life and were waiting for their father to die so they could inherit the ranch and sell it. JW had another idea which was will the ranch to Luke and money to the others.

After JW's death, the brothers hire an outlaw to remove Luke with the intention of reaching their goal. However the outlaw has has own show more ideas about who should possess the ranch which leads to a very exciting and violent conclusion to the novel. One of Patten's best. show less

“For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one’s personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time.” ~ Ford Madox Ford

The distinction between literary and genre fictions (mysteries, westerns, fantasy, and sci.fi.) is show more largely an artificial one. Those who still insist on making anachronistic literary distinctions do it for the same reason that all snobs make such declarations, self-aggrandizing assholery.

The only distinctions that can legitimately be made in literature are between good writing and bad writing and good stories and bad stories. When a work of fiction takes hold of your imagination, when the language continually invites you to turn pages the writer has done his or her job. When the book haunts you and you can remember it years and years later, the writer has written a masterpiece.

Having said all that, and believing all that to be true, I nonetheless make the following self-consciously ironic statement: The Ruthless Range by Lewis B. Patten is fully and completely a genre-fiction western in both its execution and delivery. It is not great literature by any stretch of the definition, but I did enjoy it as I enjoy all Lewis Patten books.

Patten writes in the western noir style. His stories are not as bleak as H.A. DeRosso’s but they are also not as sunlit as L’Amour. His characters are haunted and hunted men. They are driven by fate and circumstances, they are broken and break others. Violence touches them and touches those they love.

In The Ruthless Range, a gunfighter longs to hang up his guns. But in every town he goes to there is someone who wants to prove that he is faster. Shot to hell and pursued into the mountains by a crooked posse the main character, Jase Mellor, is rescued and put back together by a rancher. When the rancher is murdered, Jase has to save the ranch from the many people who want to destroy the ranch and kill Mellor. At stake are the lives of his ex-wife who had been forced into a life of prostitution and the life of the ranch widow who has become Mellor’s love interest.

In the story there is nothing new that is not in a hundred westerns. It is Patten’s style and the grim, relentless pacing that makes the book, makes any Patten western, worth the reading. Patten does not give his main character or his reader any chance to rest. Like Mellor we move with grim fatalism and no sleep from violence to violence, from defeat to defeat. The end result is a highly readable western with icons and cliches just edgy enough for us to sink our teeth into.

(This review has also been published at www.montanawriter.com) show less

The Hide Hunters by Lewis B. Patten is an American Western novel that is set in Texas with the battle at Adobe Walls as the centerpiece of the story. The main character is Jess Burdett, who, en route to joining the buffalo hunters helps a badly beaten woman escape her brute of a husband. They arrive at the buffalo hunters headquarters just days before the famous Comanche and Kiowa attack. Unfortunately, the woman’s husband also arrives tracking his runaway wife.

I had recently read another show more account of this battle and both descriptions were very much the same so I am assuming that the author did his research. The tension of fighting Indians while guarding himself from the angry husband kept the pages turning. As one fellow teases him, “It’s Hell to get shot by a white man during an Indian fight.”

Lewis B. Patten is a Spur winning author of western stories. Although there is little buffalo hunting in The Hide Hunters, the author blends frontier morality, tense action and actual history into an enjoyable and quick read. show less

Frank Patch has been the marshal of Cottonwood, Kansas for twenty years. Never an outgoing individual, he has few friends in the town with most actually fearing him. The town leaders want him to resign but he does not want to because he does not know what he would do with himself.

One weak man actually attempts to assassinate Patch but misses and Patch kills him. This really gets the town excited and eventually there is another attempt by a leading citizen who is Patch's friend which really show more upsets the citizens. This leads to an exciting conclusion. Not up to Patten's usual writing but still a wonderful read. show less