Customer Reviews

The Last Trail (The Authorized Edition) (Ohio River Trilogy)

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Zane Grey's first novels concerned his ancestors, the Zane family, and the Ohio frontier of the late 18th century. They are fairly authentic, historically, and heroic and romantic as well.

The plot of this story is simple. A Virginian and his beautiful daughter come to the western frontier of Ft. Henry, in modern West Virginia, where she falls in love with the gallant borderman Jonathan Zane. The bordermen, like their Texas Ranger counterparts, make a living by killing Indians, chasing outlaws, and acting as the only arm of the law.

Beautiful Helen is kidnapped by outlaws and Indians, then rescued by her flinty borderman, who, in the interim, has fallen hopelessly in love with her. After killing all the outlaws and the bad Indians, Jonathan forsakes his wild ways and settles down to respectable life as a farmer and father. Lots of 19th Century values are bandied about, the general superiority of white America is proven in word and deed, and the lawless frontier is beaten back to the wilds of Ohio. Residents of Cincinatti may feel at times that that's where it stayed.

Grey's prose is outdated but easily read. Where he shines is in his descriptions of nature. He has a good eye for natural beauty and a gift for relating it. I bought this as part of a .99 cent Kindle 18-pack, so it was definitely worth the time and the expense.

I love Zane Grey westerns and would like to find one that I read to my siblings when we were kids. I can't remember the name, but it was about a man named Lewis Wetzel.