The Hills of Homicide [Mass Market Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1984

For the first time in book form, here is a collection of Louis L'Amour detective stories--vivid tales as memorable and exciting as his beloved frontier fiction.  Each story is personally selected, with an introduction, by the author.

In the dark alleys of the pulsing cities and the savage criminal wilderness, Louis L'Amour introduces a new brand of characters:  men like Kip Morgan, the ex-fighter turned detective who is tough enough to bounce a bouncer, yet has more up his sleeve than sheer muscle; Joe Ragan, dedicated career cop who fears nothing in the pursuit of justice; and women whose soft laughter covers their underlying cruelty.

These are fast-moving stories of brawls where once a man goes down and doesn't get up fast enough he's through, of flashing knives that whisper death, of guns that blaze their fatal file through the blackest nights.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

For the first time in book form, here is a collection of Louis L'Amour detective stories--vivid tales as memorable and exciting as his beloved frontier fiction.  Each story is personally selected, with an introduction, by the author.

In the dark alleys of the pulsing cities and the savage criminal wilderness, Louis L'Amour introduces a new brand of characters:  men like Kip Morgan, the ex-fighter turned detective who is tough enough to bounce a bouncer, yet has more up his sleeve than sheer muscle; Joe Ragan, dedicated career cop who fears nothing in the pursuit of justice; and women whose soft laughter covers their underlying cruelty.

These are fast-moving stories of brawls where once a man goes down and doesn't get up fast enough he's through, of flashing knives that whisper death, of guns that blaze their fatal file through the blackest nights.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (May 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553241346
• ISBN-13: 978-0553241341
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 0.7 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,632 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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Film Noir Classics, July 12, 2006

By 

Aaron J. Argo "Aaron A." (Winnipeg, MB) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hills of Homicide (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is great. Anyone who loves the way Louis L'amour writes will be intrigued by this book. Everything that represents a Noir film is here, sweaty drinking detective, the woman who is always suspect, fistfights, knifefights, gunfights, if anyone of these became a movie it would be a box office hit!
The way the stories are written you can see the story unfold, this is L'amour at his finest.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent collection of detective short stories., November 21, 2002

By 

Malcolm Ray Robinson (TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hills of Homicide (Mass Market Paperback)

This book provides some of the best narratives of the old detective style genre. Louis Lamour (known so well for his western stories) creates living characters in each of these stories. The stories keep you glued to them until the very end. I wasn't able to put the book down until I finished all of them. Great entertainment!

5.0 out of 5 stars Louis L'Amour also writes well-written detective stories, November 3, 2004

By 

Henry Cate III (CA. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hills of Homicide (Mail Order Series) (Leather Bound)

Louis L'Amour is best known for his westerns. He has rarely been equaled, and never surpassed in his ability to tell stories of the struggles people had in the old west. What few people know is he wrote other stories also. For example his "Last of the Breed" is a modern day adventure worthy of Tom Clancy. It does have a feel of the old west.
"The Hills of Homicide" is a collection of detective stories from the late 1940s and early 1950s. Each of them is well written. A crime is committed, and our hero figures out who committed the crime. And like his stories of the old west, Louis L'Amour often includes a fight and a girl.

These stories from a different period of our countries history and do have a different feel to them. It is interesting to see how much technology has changed over the last 50 years. At one point a hero is trying to warn a women of danger, and he gets in a car. Now he would just get on his cell phone and call her cell phone.

These are fun, entertaining stories. They are the stories of the triumphant good over evil. Get the book and you'll enjoy several fun hours of reading these well-written stories.