Ambush
by Luke Short
On This Page
Description
The US Army and a brutal Apache chief prepare for an epic showdown in the New Mexico desert in this novel from a master storyteller of the West. Ward Kinsman has done all he can to escape civilization, spending the summer in a desert mountain range, deep in Apache territory, sifting for gold and praying he never sees another settler again. After a month of backbreaking work, he sees a trail of dust in the distance, and knows a white man has come to find him . . . which means the Apache are show more right behind. The Apache leader is Diablito, or the Little Devil, a warrior so vicious even his own men fear his rage. He's clever and unpredictable, and he hates Kinsman. The US Army has Diablito in its sights, and they want Kinsman to lead them to him. But finding the Little Devil will mean putting Kinsman's own neck on the line-and risking the life of the most beautiful woman in the territory. Made into a 1950 MGM film starring Robert Taylor, this tense western adventure, considered one of the genre's best cavalry stories, is a classic example of Luke Short's fiction. From its daring lone-wolf hero to its sweeping desert landscapes, Ambush is the American West at its roughest, toughest, and most exciting. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
Ambush by Luke Short was originally published as a serialization in the Saturday Evening Post and ran from December 1948 to February 1949. This is an old time western, set on U.S. Army Fort in Arizona, the enemy are a band of renegade Apaches who have broken from the reservation under the leadership of a fierce war leader called Diablito. They had attacked a surveyor party and had taken a white woman as captive. I don’t know if this book was ever made into a movie, but I certainly pictured Randolph Scott as the lead character.
Perhaps because it was stretched to fit the serial format, I found that it felt a little padded, it seemed to take a long time for the cavalry to actually leave the fort in pursuit of the Indians and there was a show more minor sub-plot that would have tightened the story had it been removed. Luke Short wrote many fine westerns, but I felt that Ambush was not the best example of how good he could be. show less
Perhaps because it was stretched to fit the serial format, I found that it felt a little padded, it seemed to take a long time for the cavalry to actually leave the fort in pursuit of the Indians and there was a show more minor sub-plot that would have tightened the story had it been removed. Luke Short wrote many fine westerns, but I felt that Ambush was not the best example of how good he could be. show less
Easy to read predicable western.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Author Information
81+ Works 1,437 Members
Luke Short was born in Kewanee, Illinois on November 19, 1908. Short graduated from the University of Missouri in 1930 with a degree in journalism. After having worked at several newspapers, he avoided unemployment by writing Western fiction. Short began to write for films in the 1940's and in 1948, four of his novels were made into movies. Two of show more his most notable film credits were Ramrod (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948). Short was awarded the Levi Strauss Western Writers of America award in 1969 and the Western Heritage Wrangler award in 1974. On August 18, 1975, he passed away at his home in Aspen, Colorado where he is buried. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 39
- Popularity
- 746,574
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (2.75)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 6
