Jericho's Road (Texas Rangers) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Elmer Kelton (Author) "After several years as a Texas Ranger, Andy Pickard concluded that the average criminal he dealt with was about as intelligent as a jackrabbit..." (more)
Key Phrases: border jumpers, headquarters tent, Lupe Chavez, Big Jim, San Antonio (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Seven-time Spur Award–winner and the author of more than 40 books, Kelton serves up another action-packed western with this sixth volume in his Texas Ranger series. The Texas-Mexico border in the 1870s was a bad place for gringos and Mexicans alike: both sides raided, rustled and murdered to settle old scores from the days of the Alamo and the Mexican War. Texas Rangers Andy Pickard and Farley Brackett are assigned to an understaffed Ranger company along the Nueces Strip, a bit of desert fought over by Mexican rancher Guadalupe Chavez and Texas land baron Jericho Jackson, and they quickly realize that keeping these enemies apart will be a deadly job. An ill-advised killing and a coverup cause Jackson to declare all-out war on the Chavez family, with the Rangers caught in the crossfire. Andy and Farley try desperately to stop the killings but are hampered by a commander who'd rather just let both sides kill each other off. As ambushes and gun battles leave lead-perforated vacqueros and cowboys all over the desert, the Rangers determine that there's more to the feud than family loyalty, racism and old insults. Once again, Kelton offers an exciting tale in which the bad guys are really bad and some of the good guys are, too. His characters are sharply defined, the historical background is vivid and the gunplay can't be beat.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Lupe Chavez hates gringos. Jericho Jackson hates Mexicans. Each has a ranch close to the Mexico-U.S. border. Both ranches' crews spend a significant portion of their time rustling each other's cattle and spiriting them across the border. Young Texas Ranger Andy Pickard is assigned, along with partners Farley Brackett and Len Tanner, to a Ranger outfit charged with ending border violations. Andy was taken by Comanches in a raid as an infant and raised by them until he was a young teen. He's keenly aware of the danger posed by bigots in any dispute, especially one defined in part by ethnic differences. Brackett, a former Confederate soldier, is an outspoken bigot himself and never misses a chance to disparage a Mexican. It seems like a lose-lose situation with Andy and his partners caught in the middle, but if there is a way to end the conflict with a minimum of bloodshed, Andy is determined to find it. The sixth book in Kelton's wonderful Texas Ranger series, about the development of the Lone Star State during the turbulent 1800s, deftly uses characters from past entries while constantly folding in new personalities. This is arguably the best ongoing western series in the genre today. It shouldn't be missed. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books (October 27, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765348454
• ISBN-13: 978-0765348456
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #872,402 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Border Clash, September 1, 2007

By	Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

For the past several decades, Texas author Elmer Kelton has been one of the finest writers of western novels out there and, although he turns 81 in just a few days, he doesn't seem to be slowing down much. But because so much of what passes for western fiction today is cartoonish in nature, and actually more suitable to the graphic novel genre, Kelton is less known than he deserves to be. In fact, the Western Writers of America have given him seven Spur awards, a record, and have voted him "the greatest Western writer of all time" over better known writers such as Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey.

Jericho's Road is book six of Kelton's Texas Ranger series and it is set in south Texas along the Texas-Mexico border just a few years after the Civil War. The Rangers faced the near impossible task of enforcing a border that was resented by Mexican citizens and that served as little more than a line to be crossed from both sides of the river by raiding parties on the cattle herds belonging to the other. When young Ranger Andy Pickard is reassigned to South Texas, he finds himself in the middle of a conflict between Jericho Jackson, owner of most of the land and cattle just north of the river, and Guadalupe Chavez who owns a similar spread on the south side of the Rio Grande.

The clash between these two powerful men is fated to end in violence and there is little that a few Texas Rangers can do to prevent that from happening. But the beauty of an Elmer Kelton book is what happens along the way. As the best historical novelists do, Kelton recreates the past by focusing on the daily problems and concerns of the ordinary people who lived those times, real people with all of the prejudices, ambitions and weaknesses that we recognize in ourselves today. There is plenty of gunfire in Jericho's Road, and as exciting an ending as any fan of western writing could hope for, but I'll especially remember the book for its insights into an 1870s border clash that largely explains the tensions still felt along the Rio Grande today.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jericho's Road, September 4, 2005

By	Irene O. Schilling - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Jericho's Road (Texas Rangers) (Hardcover)

The book arrived in a timely manner, well packaged and in near new condition.