Killoe [Mass Market Paperback]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 150 pages
• Publisher: Bantam Books; 14th THUS edition (1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553125036
• ISBN-13: 978-0553125030
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,558,022 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

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars THE KAYBAR MOVES FROM TEXAS TO NEW MEXICO, August 5, 2005

By 

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

This review is from: Killoe (Paperback)

This western was published by Bantam Books in 1962. Essentially an interesting and fact-filled story of a group of Texans after the war with Mexico in the late 1850's who decide to move west.

In the spring and summer of 1858 they decide to move further west to New Mexico in the vicinity of Fort Stanton, built in 1855, and Bosque Redondo. While Louis L'Amour offers many aspects of their subsequent cattle drive, this story equally concerns this group of people and their relocation from Cowhouse Creek, Texas, near Austin, over the rough, arid Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains area, which is between Horsehead Crossing and the Palo Duro Canyon. Their final destination for resettlement will be near Bosque Redondo, New Mexico.

While there exists the potential of trouble along their westward route from Comanche Indians, Comancheros in the Palo Duro, possibly Apache Indians, and even a group of ruffians from back home trying to steal their cattle herd, the most pressing danger facing this group of settlers comes from an 80-mile stretch containing no water. Three days without drinkable water for neither themselves nor their cattle, with much of the available water in this Pecos River country full of "concentrated alkali" and "It's death if they drink it." (pg 73). Horsehead Crossing, an ancient area of Comanche Indian activity when driving herds up from Mexico, has been the death of hundreds of men and horses.

As with so many of Louis' westerns, his concerns are strongly focused on the social organization and inter-family relationships that it took to go or travel west. As he says at one point, moving west was hard work, with many men and animals perishing, never to reach their destination. While this group does reach its desired location, it is not without loss, and many travails. Louis seemed to be very interested in what it took for people to build once they reached their destinations; with one book, 'Bendigo Shafter', being dedicated to building a town from scratch.

This book is one of his better ones, without a reader's need to suspend the ole disbelief. His heroes and heroines here are all pretty much flesh and blood believable characters.

A quick read of only six long chapters, but one that is well worth the reading.

Semper Fi.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Troubled Trails., May 6, 2002

By 

Robert S. Clay Jr. (St. Louis, MO., USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Killoe (Paperback)

Texas ~ 1858. Dan Killoe ramrods a ragtag group of ranch families who pull up stakes and push their herds west. Searching for new country, they fight rustlers, Comanches, and raiding Comancheros. This is an ambitious novel. The story has gunfights, cattle stampedes, and a dollop of romance. In the grim desert, the water shortage for the great herd is severe. Breeding stock dangerously diminishes. Failure and lonesome death loom. Courage, loyalty, and survival are common themes. The action is swift and hard. The plot is busy. The rapid pace of L'Amour's pulp magazine origins is evident. Character development is still emerging when the book rather abruptly ends. Louis L'Amour breathes new life into the familiar elements of the Western story. Iron men and stoic women prevail. The writing has an air of authenticity that adds to the reader's enjoyment. This quick hit of lite reading rises above the mixture as before pitfalls. Excellent for armchair adventurers. ;-)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1858 a great yr., April 30, 2003

By 

Max Inman (holland, mi. U.S.A) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Killoe (Paperback)

In 1858 because Texas was getting crowded Dan Killoe, his parents and friends plus all of their cattle headed west to find new, untouched land. Along their travels they ran into the (BAD) guys who wanted to take their cattle as well as the Comanches who wanted their hair. The comancheros would steal and kill everything they could get their hands on. A mean story to keep you on yoiur seat.