The Iron Marshall

An immigrant shoulder striker from New York City ends up in small town Kansas. He ends up becoming the towns marshal and needs to protect it from cattle drivers and thieves. I enjoyed the book, especially the focus in the first part of the book on happenings in New York, something Louis L'Amour doesn't focus on most time.

A young Irish orphan arrives in New York, finds work as a smith and assisting the shoulder-strikers of Tammany Hall. One day while facing enemies in overwhelming odds he hides in a freight car and eventually winds up in a Kansas town in need of a sheriff.

I liked this story, quite a bit, probably as it's a slightly different plot in the Western genre.

One of the more creative takes on the western genre by the author. A little more of the Chick Bowdrie detective angle combined with a fish out of water protagonist. Well constructed book.

third person limited, past tense, single narrator

Tom Shanaghy is an Irish strongarm for a gangster in New York. He boards a train and ends up in a small frontier town in Kansas, and takes the job as marshal. The part of the story that takes place in New York is very different from L'Amour's usual fare. I enjoyed watching this city boy take on the villains of the wild west.

I think this one of the better ones that I have read. An Irishmen evades the gangs of NY and escapes on a train heading West. They find him in a climatic end. Great story, quick entertaining, and fun.

Tom Shanaghy moves to New York from Ireland. With both parents dead, he survives on the streets of the city by helping gamblers and pimps collect their money. Eventually another gang attempts to murder him and his escape puts him in a box car that takes him to Kansas. There he quickly finds himself made marshal of the town when no one else will take the job and save the town from a clash of locals angry men.

He senses that there is more going on then an angry rancher threatening a family of bad men and soon finds himself trying to unravel a scheme to steal all the money local businessmen have raised to buy cattle from the drives coming in from Texas. This is the usual fast paced action filled L'Amour fiction we were use to in his novels show more and short stories. show less

A brash young shoulder-striker from a tough New York City gang finds himself on a freight train west. He hops off in a little frontier town and must wait for an east-bound train to take him home. In the meantime, he finds ways to make himself useful around the little town - and finds himself in the middle of a powderkeg about to blow the town apart.