Customer Reviews

Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1: Bounty Hunters, Forty Lashes Less One, and Gunsights

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Elmore Leonard's 'The Bounty Hunters' is one of his first novels. As a western, it is a great tale of cowboys and Indians. Dave Flynn is a former soldier that has an ongoing dislike for a superior officer. This officer sends Flynn and a young lieutenant named Bowers into Mexico to track down Saldado, a rogue apache. From there, 'The Bounty Hunters' unfolds into an expansive western adventure.

Not only do Flynn and Bowers have to track down Saldado, they have to look over their shoulders for Frank Rellis, who Flynn showed up in the bar back in the States. Before Rellis left town, he shot one of Flynn's friends. As they venture into Mexico, they discover a scalper that is taking more than Apache scalps for bounties awarded in the village of Soyopa. Speaking of the village, it has its own problems with a missing family and a corrupt government. Along the way, Flynn finds a love interest.

This book is classic Leonard. It introduces many of the hallmarks that make Leonard novels so enjoyable. It also introduces some of the stock character types (the bad guy that isn't all there, his henchman that makes a turn for the good, the sidekick that comes into his own, etc.). The dialogue is also first rate, although some of the conversation about the apache is a bit generic. My only disappointment came in some of the action scenes that were not really clear as to what was happening.

I recommend this novel for any Leonard fan or fans of Westerns. Its good reading for a plane ride or if you are in need of something to do on a lazy afternoon. When you're done, check out Leonard's crime work.

I have yet to figure out what it is about his writing, but Elmore Leonard creates characters that I cannot stop reading. I just can't put the book down once I start. It's a set of early Westerns that are a must-read for new Leonard fans. If you loved his more modern creations like Raylan Givens, Chili Palmer, and Ordell Robbie, give his older stuff a try. Maybe it'll even hook you on Westerns as a genre. Excellent stuff.

Elmore Leonard is an interesting author. He's been around since the '50s (the first book in the collection, The Bounty Hunters, was originally published in 1953) and is still as hip and cool as ever. He's also probably had more of his books turned into movies than any other man alive: at least six by my count, and I'm sure I'm missing some. This book is a collection of three of his earlier westerns, the above mentioned The Bounty Hunters, and Forty Lashes Less One and Gunsights. All three novels are recognisably Leonard: you could almost tell who wrote them without reading the author's name on the cover.

The Bounty Hunters has a typical Leonard plot. A cavalry scout and a green US army Lieutenant are sent into Mexico, incognito, to capture a renegade Apache. Complications set in when corrupt Rurales (local Mexican police), a group of angry local villagers, and the title group of bounty hunters (whites who kill Apaches for cash from the Mexican Government) all collide with our two heroes. The one part where this novel fell a bit short for me was in the mild language. In the '50s, Leonard couldn't use profanity or obscenity, and it rings a bit false now.

Forty Lashes Less One is a prison break novel. It's only sort of a Western, being set in 1909, but only the appearance of an automobile breaks the landscape of what would otherwise be a Western. Two convicts, one black, the other an American Indian, are thrown together, first to fight, later as allies, by circumstances beyond their control in a brutal prison in the desert Southwest. Various groups are competing for various things, with a guard who peeks at the women prisoners, a prisoner who pretty much runs the place---he thinks, a new prison warden who wants to redeem those under his charge, and various prisoners scheming to escape, of course. It takes a bit to get going, but the payoff is worth the wait.

Gunsights is about a range war. It's the typical story: the people on the land don't own it, and the land owners don't want them to stay. What makes the story interesting is that the author manages to maneuver two good friends into opposite sides of the fight. Things are reminiscent of The Bounty Hunters; one of the friends is a former army scout, the other's a retired cavalry officer. There are various factions with different agendas wandering through the story: the two men kill several people early on, and spend half the book fighting off their relatives later. The story has a fun and workmanlike progress to it, and you almost can see the ending coming.

All three of these novels are short, all three are good, all three are worth reading. I would recommend this especially for a long plane ride or a short weekend vacation: great escapist reading.

It's unusual for me to read a Western. Movies and TV series, great! But Western books? It's rare for me to read one.

I liked SHANE. I liked a book my brother loaned me about 25 or 30 years ago about a lawman who refused to use a gun. I had the privilege of editing for Dusty Rhodes. I also loved TRIED AND TRUE, which I read for Books Unbound, and I apologize to the author for forgetting her name, but I'm writing this review while I'm without Internet access.

Those are the only Westerns I've enjoyed reading, except for one I recently reviewed by Elmore Leonard. I found this one in Shanghai last week, and it's not as good as all that, but it's readable enough. I wouldn't make a special point of finding it, though.