Customer Reviews

High Lonesome

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Riding the outlaw trail, Considine, Dutch, Hardy, and The Kiowa rob the bank at Obaro, where Runyon, an old partner of Considine's, is sheriff. With the posse hot on their trail, the fugitives encounter Spanyer, the tough old frontiersman, and his daughter, Lennie. Sparks fly between Lennie and Considine, much to Spanyer's dismay. To further complicate things, marauding Apaches stalk the area. Finally, outnumbered and outgunned, the motley crew makes a heroic stand up on High Lonesome. As the rifles fire, the ground is covered with the dead.

This is a good action-adventure story from Louis L'Amour. It's always troublesome to make heroes of killers and thieves, of course, but don't let good taste get in the way of a rousing Western story. The writing is fast-paced and lean. Character development is evident, but limited by the brief 150+ page length, and the emphasis on action. Louis L'Amour breathes new life into the familiar Western cliches. This is good escapism for down time reading. Recommended. ;-)

This has to be one of the best in the Western genre I have read. It is short, full of action and packs a real punch. Considine has been a bank robber for the last decade or so and is getting jaded. Together with Dutch, Hardy and the Kiowa they decide to make one last hit, on the bank at Obara which has proved impossible to hit in the past. Everyone in town is prepared to fight for it, and they are all top marksmen.

The four in the gang meet up with a man and his daughter, Lennie, on the trail into town - they are heading west. Considine feels a spark with Lennie and it is reciprocated but her father doesn't want her taking up with a no account gunslinger, even though he was one. So they part ways - Considine and the gang to do the bank, and lennie and her father to 'californy'

The bank job goes ok, but making their escape for Mexico they cut Lennie's trail and see that they are on one horse, and that there are indians stalking them. Considine hears shooting the distance, he knows the town posse is after him, but he has to decide between Mexico and saving the woman who is holed up and making at stand at High Lonesome.

This is a great story about the grey areas of life, of making decisions, of retribution and forgiveness. It moves along quickly and was a great read - highly recommended.

There are some great lines in here.

I've thoroughly enjoyed almost every L'Amour book I've ever picked up (and there are only a couple that I haven't read), But High Lonesome is one of my all time favorites. It's got an even better story and characters than most of his books.

I gave it a 4 but accidentally scrolled down.. so, my apology.
It is a 4 star !

This book was assigned to me to read for 8th grade and was the first Louis L'Amour book I read. I can't really say it's my favorite yet but I really liked it alot! It's about a small group of outlaws led by a man named Considine and as they escape from one of the biggest, most carefully planned bank robberies ever and how Considine meets up with an old friend along the way, named Dave Spanyer, who has a very pretty daughter that he would like to marry.

L'Amour's only consistent weakness as a novelist was that he was never any good at suspense. He knew it, and he struggled against it with all the bitter stubbornness of one of his own heroes, but only rarely did he overcome it. In High Lonesome, though, L'Amour took the opposite tack: he decided to try to turn his weakness into a strength, and he succeeded astonishingly. High Lonesome is utterly lacking in suspense or surprise. Almost from Chapter One, everything points toward the brutal climax atop the titular mountain. But this predictability is not at all boring; instead, L'Amour invests the plot with the solemn, majestic grandeur of inevitability.

Of the 27 L'Amours I've read, this is the only one where the main characters are badmen. Not occasional lawbreakers like Nolan Sackett, but hardcore, professional criminals. The four man band of bank robbers are among the most memorable characters L'Amour ever wrote - the haunted Considine, the calm professional safecracker Dutch, the headstrong young Hardy, and best of all, the silent and enigmatic Kiowa. They could not be more different, and yet they are bound together by a subtle, undefinable ethos that leads them inescapably down the same trail, to the same doom. And then there is Pete Runyon, the man whom you would expect L'Amour to cast in the lead, whose complex relationship with Considine is intertwined through the whole length of the plot. Even though Considine and Runyon only meet twice in the whole novel, the first time not until the halfway point, they are so intimately connected that Considine can sense a change in his old rival merely from a glance at Runyon's empty parlor.

The story of these five men's journey through friendship, through shared success, through death and, ultimately, to redemption is one of the most gratifying that L'Amour ever wrote. If you've never read L'Amour, or even if you've tried him and don't like him, read High Lonesome before you give up on him.

"High Lonesome" is flecked with dread. There's a ray of hope at the bitter end but there's a lot of bitter before you get there. This is 90 percent straight-up action and still manages to pack in plenty of life-choice situations for this band of (mostly) bad guys. Or bad guys with a touch of heart here and there. "High Lonesome" is about last chances, big choices and dreams. Even bad guys have dreams and Considine's hopes are clear. He even wants to rob the bank in Obaro his own way. "There must be no killing. He would like to rob the bank of Obaro to get the money and to taunt them, but he wanted no killing. Aside from the fact that he hated no one there, there was a practical side. Take their money and they might come after you; but kill a friend of theirs and they would follow you through hell." Yes, there's a woman and plenty of bullets and knives. Bad guys, more bad guys and some shades of gray. Dreams interrupted. "Whatever a man does leaves a trail behind, and to his passing he leaves indications of the manner of man he is, of his character, and even something of his plans. It requires only the observant and understanding eye to read what the trail can show." That's about as good a summary as any. A quick, energetic and still thoughtful read.

The solidarity of men of the "frontier" to save a woman at risk is the central node of this magnificent history. Faced with the danger expressed by Apaches, a band of outlaws will sacrifice and forget his loot. A very beautiful story.

This has to be one of the best in the Western genre I have read. It is short, full of action and packs a real punch. Considine has been a bank robber for the last decade or so and is getting jaded. Together with Dutch, Hardy and the Kiowa they decide to make one last hit, on the bank at Obara which has proved impossible to hit in the past. Everyone in town is prepared to fight for it, and they are all top marksmen.

The four in the gang meet up with a man and his daughter, Lennie, on the trail into town - they are heading west. Considine feels a spark with Lennie and it is reciprocated but her father doesn't want her taking up with a no account gunslinger, even though he was one. So they part ways - Considine and the gang to do the bank, and lennie and her father to 'californy'

The bank job goes ok, but making their escape for Mexico they cut Lennie's trail and see that they are on one horse, and that there are indians stalking them. Considine hears shooting the distance, he knows the town posse is after him, but he has to decide between Mexico and saving the woman who is holed up and making at stand at High Lonesome.

This is a great story about the grey areas of life, of making decisions, of retribution and forgiveness. It moves along quickly and was a great read - highly recommended.

There are some great lines in here.

This has to be one of the best in the Western genre I have read. It is short, full of action and packs a real punch. Considine has been a bank robber for the last decade or so and is getting jaded. Together with Dutch, Hardy and the Kiowa they decide to make one last hit, on the bank at Obara which has proved impossible to hit in the past. Everyone in town is prepared to fight for it, and they are all top marksmen.

The four in the gang meet up with a man and his daughter, Lennie, on the trail into town - they are heading west. Considine feels a spark with Lennie and it is reciprocated but her father doesn't want her taking up with a no account gunslinger, even though he was one. So they part ways - Considine and the gang to do the bank, and lennie and her father to 'californy'

The bank job goes ok, but making their escape for Mexico they cut Lennie's trail and see that they are on one horse, and that there are indians stalking them. Considine hears shooting the distance, he knows the town posse is after him, but he has to decide between Mexico and saving the woman who is holed up and making at stand at High Lonesome.

This is a great story about the grey areas of life, of making decisions, of retribution and forgiveness. It moves along quickly and was a great read - highly recommended.

There are some great lines in here.