Kiowa Trail [Paperback]

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Bantam Books (1976)
• ASIN: B001D70B8U
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Different Sort of Western Novel, May 2, 2000

By 

Top Dragon (USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Kiowa Trail (Mass Market Paperback)

Every time I read a novel by Louis L'Amour, I am reminded why he is the King of Westerns. His novels are not of the "cookie-cutter" variety and this novel is vintage L'Amour. It is a story of revenge, and the strength of one woman's resolve to avenge the death of her young brother. But it is L'Amour's skillful use of flashback sequences which defines this book. The tale is actually told from the point-of-view of a man whose parents were killed causing him to spend three years living with Apaches, as well as time in Europe and as a Union Officer in the Civil War. It is his story as much as hers and it should be obvious that this is a complicated plot. But L'Amour successfully pulls it off. L'Amour's storys are always "real" in that the locations are real places and many of the characters are historical. Few historians are as knowledgable of this era as L'Amour, and it shows in his novels. Enjoy reading Kiowa Trail!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NARRATIVE BRINGS CHARACTERS TO LIFE, May 26, 2006

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kiowa Trail (Audio CD)

It's difficult to give voice to characters in the Old West without making it sound almost like a parody. However, with his expertise and acumen actor Ron McLarty brings Louis L'Amour's characters to life with authenticity and vitality.

Men of the Tumbling B were tough, having survived hardship and danger during a recent cattle drive. The town they came to is described thusly:

"The town to which we had come was ten buildings long on the north side of the street, and seven long on the south, with stock corrals to the east, and a Boot Hill on the west, and in between an edging from the mills of hell.

South of the street were the shacks of the girls, and north of it the homes of the respectable businessmen of the town, where no trail driver was permitted to go."

In that last sentence lay the problem. Foreman Conn Dury had made that clear to his men - they were forbidden to go on the north side of town. However, temptation in the form of Linda McDonald, was too much for Tom Lundy, and he paid with his life.

His sister, Kate, owner of the Tumbling B well knew that the townsfolk liked the money the cowboys brought in, but disparaged the men. That was one thing; her brother's murder was quite another. She determined to get revenge for his killing, but at what price?

This is one more Western adventure as only L'Amour could write them. Enjoy!

- Gail Cooke

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An epic idea not fully realised., April 1, 2000

By 

"ofurstinn" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kiowa Trail (Mass Market Paperback)

The main plot is revenge. The people in a small town, controled by a ruthless man, murder a young man. The young man's sister, Kate, wants revenge but not in the way the town people expect. She leases the land around the town and fences it in with barbed wire and no cattle herd is allowed through....she wants the whole town to die. The main character is Conn Dury and the story is told from his POV, in many flashbacks his story is told from his childhood and through this war with the town, Kate being the woman he loves and her brother the son he never had. This story has well crafted characters and is an epic story not fully realised, told much too simply. Though not a bad novel it's a long way from being as good as it could have been. Still, I enjoyed reading it and let my imagination fill in what I felt was missing.