Kid Rodelo
by Louis L'Amour
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Fiction. Western. Thriller. Historical Fiction. HTML:Joe Harbin hadn't killed a man for a fortune in gold just to sit in prison and let Rodelo collect it. But when he and his men break out and head for the stash, they end up with a pair of unwelcome partners: Rodelo and a beautiful woman with a hidden past. To get fifty thousand dollars in gold across fifty miles of desert, the desperate band quickly learns how much they need each other-—and how deep their greed and suspicion can show more run. At the end of the journey lie the waters of Baja and a new life in Mexico, but first they have to survive the savage heat, bounty-hunting Yaqui Indians, and the shifting, treacherous nature of both the desert sands and their own conflicting loyalties. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
An ex-con, a few escaped prisoners, and a mysterious woman head into the desert with gold in their saddlebags, a posse of Yaquis on their trail. Will they survive the harsh desert, or will the lust for riches decimate their ranks before their pursuers can? Good straightforward adventure story.
Nice western from L'Amour. Various people are after a buried cache of $50,000 gold from a holdup. The first man after it was not so lucky as we find him dead in the first paragraph of the novel following a prison break. Others find the gold and it makes things interesting. A somewhat mysterious good looking woman adds to the intrigue, as they try to escape across the desert. The story had a good start but dragged a bit after a while despite being a short novel. We needed more from the characters than we were given early on. The story does pick back up however and slowly the mysteries unfold.
Escape from the prison at Yuma was nearly impossible. And once a man escaped, where was there to go but the desert? But a small group of men desperate enough to take the chance are heading for the border when they find a lovely girl looking for her own escape. Pretty typical - maybe a little darker and more desperate than many of Louis' heroes. I do like this one, but not as well.
Good fast read like all of of Louis L'amour's books.
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870+ Works 99,077 Members
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
- Kid Rodelo
- Original publication date
- 1966-03
- People/Characters
- Danny "Kid" Rodelo; Joe Harbin; Nora Paxton; Tom Badger; Gopher; Sam Burrows (show all 10); Clint Wilson; Jake Andrews; Hat; Isacher
- Important places
- Gold City, Arizona, USA; Yuma Desert, Arizona, USA; Yuma Territorial Prison, Yuma, Arizona Territory, USA; El Gran Desierto, Sonora, Mexico; Adair Bay, Sonora, Mexico
- Related movies
- Kid Rodelo (1966 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- [None]
- Dedication
- [None]
- First words
- The Yuma Desert, east of the Colorado River mouth, was like the floor of a furnace; but of the four riders, three were Yaqui Indians and accustomed to the heat, as were the buzzards swinging in lazy circles above them.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)She held the rusted box tightly in her hand, but somehow it no longer seemed so important.
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Statistics
- Members
- 622
- Popularity
- 46,556
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- Dutch, English, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 26
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 18
