Book review

Louis L'Amour's Ride the River (1983)

Every so often, I like to don the mental cowboy boots, pretend I have a six-shooter at my hip, hear the jingle of spurs with my strides to my teaching job and crack open a western on the train.

This time, I read the ever prolific Louis L'Amour. I have read two other books by him. The first was 12 years ago when I was workign on a ship. It was predicatble and a shoot 'em up and I was not so thrilled.

I then read High Lonesome (which I have in my book collection from a used book store) and I was a little more engaged. The plot was simple, but entertaining.

Ride the River (which I had also acquired at a used bookstore) finally called to me and got my attention, and I realized that I have not given L'Amour enough credit for his efforts. It was well written.

The story is about a girl named Echo Sackett, a mountian girl who goes to the big city to claim a sizeable inheritance. Shifty lawyer and a couple of thieves look to relieve her of her money which she needs to improve her way of life back home. The chase her down and try to get the money. Little do the scoundrels know, that little lady can take care of herself and can shoot the nose off of a squirrel at 100 yards.

The viewpoint that he used was first person ,though in the story he (by necessity, I suppose) switched to third person to get into other characters perspective. The language of Echo Sackett, as some mountain girl of 16 was genuine and authentic sounding. I praise L'Amour for finding a believeable voice (with particular vernacular and cadence) and maintaining it consistently throughout. He did his research well, too, in that the locales had names which I could probably find on Wikipedia (or if not, he convinced me of their existences).

His characters were engaging, both the protagonists and atagonists. I only hoped more would have been given about the antagonists.

The ending was ok, but could have been better with higher tension raised. The whole book sucked me in and had me follow along with the characters who are being stalked by thieves.

I am looking forward to getting some more L'Amour. I would recommend Ride the River.

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