This was my first Louis L'Amour and I had so much fun reading it! L'Amour's style, slow, precise and idiomatic, generates a perfect Western feel. I sensed that I was walking in the lazy streets of a Colorado frontier town where despite everyday boredom lays a restlessness and wary curiosity for strangeness. The plot slowly unfolds, giving ways to clues and suppositions with bouts of action. I appreciated the veiled violence, discreet compared to today's gruesomeness.
Overall an entertaining read which brings us back to a gone era. ( )

Western

Part of the Chantry cluster of books. Generally, a more urbane group than the Sackets that does cross over into their stories at times. ( )

After severe weather leaves his ranch bereft of cattle, and with no money coming in, Borden Chantry takes the job of town sheriff to make ends meet. Things stay pretty quiet until a young stranger is found dead. Once Chantry makes an effort to solve the murder he meets resistance and dodges bullets. Good entry in the Chantry/Sackett/Talon series. ( )

Borden Chantry is the character L'Amour used for western mysteries. Borden is a small town sheriff who tries to use common sense and reasoning to solve the killing of a young stranger to his town. (The young stranger is a Sackett, but the Sacketts are only marginally important in this story). The killing proves to be murder - and it leads to the uncovering of other murders both before and after this death. Borden's efforts to smoke out the killer - who he knows is someone in the town - lead through a number of blind alleys, and make him suspect even his friends.