Heller with a Gun
by Louis L'Amour
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Description
Fiction. Western. Thriller. Historical Fiction. Tom Healy was in trouble. His theatrical troupe needed to get to Alder Gulch, Montana, and the weather was turning. Andy Barker promised Tom he could get them there safely, but Tom was reluctant to trust him: he had the lives of three actresses to consider, and his personal feelings for Janice further heightened his concern. Then King Mabry showed up. Although Tom didn’t like the way he looked at Janice, he could see that Mabry made Barker show more uneasy. So Tom invited Mabry to join them. Tom was right to be worried, because Barker had a plan. He knew that the wagons carried something more than actors and scenery. He and his men were going to steal it any way they could. And that included murder. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
I like the historical references, the Hat Creek Stage Station and the Hole in the Wall. Wyoming winters are just as described, brutal and bitter. Our hero King Mabry catches a few too many lucky breaks, maybe, but I like that the women in the group are their own people, brave and practical. A good story.
King Mabry is a man who is handy with his guns but also a man with sensitivity and caring. When he was hired to carry a large amount of money to a ranch and after killing a bushwhacker who was after the money, he finds his way to Hat Creek Station. A winter storm is raging and he finds a theatre group holding up there. They are planning there trip to Alder with a guide that Mabry does not trust.
Mabry continues on to his destination but eventually plans to return and follow the group which he does. It becomes a battle between Mabry and the outlaw leader Baker to save the three women and two men of the theatre group. Add some Sioux renegades who want the white man's women, horses and guns to the mix and you have one fast moving adventure show more story. Also keep in mind that much of the action takes place in snow storms with temperatures as low as 40 below.
Some the situations from which Mabry's survives stretch credibility. show less
Mabry continues on to his destination but eventually plans to return and follow the group which he does. It becomes a battle between Mabry and the outlaw leader Baker to save the three women and two men of the theatre group. Add some Sioux renegades who want the white man's women, horses and guns to the mix and you have one fast moving adventure show more story. Also keep in mind that much of the action takes place in snow storms with temperatures as low as 40 below.
Some the situations from which Mabry's survives stretch credibility. show less
A group of touring actors decided to go in the middle of winter into western Wyoming. They have a hired local to get them through. Enter King Mabry, a western man of action. He finds the females of the group attractive. He doesn't really find the local they hired to get them through to be the right sort of person, so he follows. After bad things happen he comes in and saves the day.
Average.
Average.
Not as good as some but overall Louis produces and entertaining western.
Product Description
King Mabry survived by his guns. He wasn't proud of his deadly skill, nor was he ashamed. He just lived with it every hard day on the frontier. When a traveling theatrical troupe hired a ruthless killer to guide them through the Wyoming wilderness, King Mabry--his guns at the ready--set out to follow their trail. And neither blizzards, nor Indians, nor the wily guide would stop him.
From the Publisher
It was a hard land that bred hard men to hard ways. King Mabry survived by his guns. He wasn't proud of his deadly skill, nor was he ashamed. He just lived with it every hard day on the frontier. When a traveling theatrical troupe hired a ruthless killer to guide them through the Wyoming wilderness, King Mabry--his show more guns at the ready-set out to follow their trail, and not blizzards, nor Indians, nor the wily guide would stop him. show less
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Author Information

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Born in Jamestown, North Dakota on March 22, 1908, Louis L'Amour's adventurous life could have been the subject of one of his novels. Striking out on his own in 1923, at age 15, L'Amour began a peripatetic existence, taking whatever jobs were available, from skinning dead cattle to being a sailor. L'Amour knew early in life that he wanted to be a show more writer, and the experiences of those years serve as background for some of his later fiction. During the 1930s he published short stories and poetry; his career was interrupted by army service in World War II. After the war, L'Amour began writing for western pulp magazines and wrote several books in the Hopalong Cassidy series using the pseudonym Tex Burns. His first novel, Westward the Tide (1950), serves as an example of L'Amour's frontier fiction, for it is an action-packed adventure story containing the themes and motifs that he uses throughout his career. His fascination with history and his belief in the inevitability of manifest destiny are clear. Also present and typical of L'Amour's work are the strong, capable, beautiful heroine who is immediately attracted to the equally capable hero; a clear moral split between good and evil; reflections on the Native Americans, whose land and ways of life are being disrupted; and a happy ending. Although his work is somewhat less violent than that of other western writers, L'Amour's novels all contain their fair share of action, usually in the form of gunfights or fistfights. L'Amour's major contribution to the western genre is his attempt to create, in 40 or more books, the stories of three families whose histories intertwine as the generations advance across the American frontier. The novels of the Irish Chantry, English Sackett, and French Talon families are L'Amour's most ambitious project, and sadly were left unfinished at his death. Although L'Amour did not complete all of the novels, enough of the series exists to demonstrate his vision. L'Amour's strongest attribute is his ability to tell a compelling story; readers do not mind if the story is similar to one they have read before, for in the telling, L'Amour adds enough small twists of plot and detail to make it worth the reader's while. L'Amour fans also enjoy the bits of information he includes about everything from wilderness survival skills to finding the right person to marry. These lessons give readers the sense that they are getting their money's worth, that there is more to a L'Amour novel than sheer escapism. With over 200 million copies of his books in print worldwide, L'Amour must be counted as one of the most influential writers of westerns in this century. He died from lung cancer on June 10, 1988. (Bowker Author Biography) Louis L'Amour, truly America's favorite storyteller, was the first fiction writer ever to receive the Congressional Gold Medal from the United States Congress in honor of his life's work, & was also awarded the Medal of Freedom. There are over 260 million copies of his books in print worldwide. (Publisher Provided) show less
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Heller with a Gun
- Original publication date
- 1955
- People/Characters
- Tom Healy; Andy Barker; King Mabry; Janice Ryan; Maggie; Doc Guilford (show all 15); Dodie Saxon; Bent Forrest; Pete Griffin; Joe Noss; Bill Williams; Art Boyle; Les Benham; High Bear; Windy Stuart
- Important places
- Hat Creek Station, Sage Creek, Wyoming, USA; Hole in the Wall, Wyoming, USA; Fort Custer, Montana, USA; Virginia City, Montana, USA
- Related movies
- Heller in Pink Tights (1960 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- [None]
- Dedication
- [None]
- First words
- He was riding southwest in a gathering storm and behind him a lone man clung to his trail.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then Tom Healy looked down at the menu. "It's onion soup," he said. "They only have one kind."
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 685
- Popularity
- 41,625
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (3.68)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, French, Norwegian (Bokmål)
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 15



























































