The Broken Gun [Mass Market Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 151 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; 25th Printing edition (1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 055314104X
• ISBN-13: 978-0553141047
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,041,481 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"I think of myself in the oral tradition--as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of a campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered--as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

It is doubtful that any author could be as at home in the world re-created in his novels as Louis Dearborn L'Amour. Not only could he physically fill the boots of the rugged characters he wrote about, but he literally "walked the land my characters walk." His personal experiences as well as his lifelong devotion to historical research combined to give Mr. L'Amour the unique knowledge and understanding of people, events, and the challenge of the American frontier that became the hallmarks of his popularity.

Of French-Irish descent, Mr. L'Amour could trace his own in North America back to the early 1600s and follow their steady progression westward, "always on the frontier." As a boy growing up in Jamestown, North Dakota, he absorbed all he could about his family's frontier heritage, including the story of his great-grandfather who was scalped by Sioux warriors.

Spurred by an eager curiosity and desire to broaden his horizons, Mr. L'Amour left home at the age of fifteen and enjoyed a wide variety of jobs, including seaman, lumberjack, elephant handler, skinner of dead cattle, and miner, and was an officer in the transportation corps during World War II. During his "yondering" days he also circled the world on a freighter, sailed a dhow on the Red Sea, was shipwrecked in the West Indies and stranded in the Mojave Desert. He won fifty-one of fifty-nine fights as a professional boxer and worked as a journalist and lecturer. He was a voracious reader and collector of rare books. His personal library contained 17,000 volumes.

Mr. L'Amour "wanted to write almost from the time I could talk." After developing a widespread following for his many frontiers and adventure stories written for fiction magazines, Mr. L'Amour published his first full length novel, Hondo, in the United States in 1953. Every one of his more than 120 books is in print; there are more than 300 million copies of his books in print worldwide, making him one of the bestselling authors in modern literary history. His books have been translated into twenty languages, and more than forty-five of his novels and stories have been made into feature films and television movies.

The recipient of many great honor and awards, in 1983 Mr. L'Amour became the first novelist to ever to be awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress in honor of his life's work. In 1984 he was also awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan.

Louis L'Amour died on June 10, 1988. His wife, Kathy, and their two children, Beau and Angelique, carry the L'Amour publishing tradition forward with new books written by the author during his lifetime to be published by Bantam.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Toomey Massacre, August 1, 2005

By 

Kay's Husband (Virginia, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Broken Gun (Mass Market Paperback)

According to Louis L'Amour's book 'The Broken Gun' a massacre of 27 innocent men with their cattle herd stolen happened 90 years ago. The time setting of this book is 90 later as page 51 states: "This is not the nineteenth century, the day of the rustler and gun-fighter; this was the day of satellites and moon voyages."

This book has Louis straddling both the 19th and 20th centuries, with the hero, Dan Sheridan, living out his life a few years after the Korean conflict. Part of the experience and knowledge from that armed conflict will help him and another man with whom he served in Korea face the people now trying to kill both of them. Since Louis taught survival courses during his years in the Army, much of that survival training is embedded in this story taking place in the Verde River Valley, Yavapai County, Arizona. This is an area laying just east of Phoenix, Arizona.

The narrative continually swings back and forth from the present to the year 1872 when two men, Clyde and John Toomey, met their murderous ends. Decendents of the people who bushwhacked the Toomeys now without deed live on the land they stole from the Toomeys. In the process of writing his book, author Dan Sheridan seeks not only to save several lives in this outdoor adventure, but also seeks justice for the 27 men killed 90 years previous, by seeing the rightful heirs get their property back.

Within this story a Bisley colt has part of a diary in the barrel of the gun, and this helps get Dan Sheridan's interest, plus it gives him information about the Toomeys. This is interesting to me too, for in a 1937 William Colt MacDonald story published in Western Story Magazine (3/6/37), entitled "Skelton Gold", a Texas wrangler buys an old .45 in Paso City with a map to hidden treasure in the barrel. Is this only a coincidence? Was Louis familiar with this short story?

If you are a western fan in general, or a Louis L'Amour fan in specific you will find much in this book to enjoy.

Sempter Fi.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars rivetting, July 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Broken Gun (Mass Market Paperback)

Louis L`amour writes in a manner that places you in the story and holds your attention, you just can`t put it down untill you have read the entire book. Then it draws you back to read it again and again. You read of a man in the desert and you get thirsty. I have been reading L`amour books since about the age of seven and have read them untill the covers fall off and the pages crumble. I have allways wanted to meet Louis L`amour but never had the opportunity. All I can realy say is there shall never be another. May the legacy of Louis L`amour as the worlds greatest story teller live forever.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE BEST OF THE OLD WEST AND THE NEW!, July 30, 2004

By 

D. McAllister "MRD" (Somewhere in the Field) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Broken Gun (Mass Market Paperback)

THE BROKEN GUN combines the best of the Old West and the New as Dan Sheridan, a western historian and author, seeks to solve a ninety-year-old western mystery. Finding several pages of an old journal, rolled up and stuffed in the barrel of a broken gun, a Bisley Colt, Sheridan seeks to uncover the secrets spoken of in the journal. As he proceeds he finds that the account deals with events that, while seemingly forgotten and settled history, have spilled over into the present with frightening consequences.

Louis L'Amour's THE BROKEN GUN is a sensational read that reminds us that, in the West, some things change while others remain alarmingly the same.

THE HORSEMAN