Man from the Broken Hills [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Louis L'Amour (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 1976

For years Milo Talon had been riding the outlaw trail, looking for a man who had betrayed his family. Only Hank Rossiter wasn’t the man he had been: old now and blind, Rossiter was trying desperately to hold on to a small ranch to support his daughter, Barbara. Suddenly Talon found himself in the middle of a range war, siding with the man he’d marked for payback. But had Rossiter really changed? And could his daughter be trusted by either of them? For Milo, getting to the truth meant a long hard fight to separate his enemies from his friends—and forgiveness from revenge.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The Sacketts were fierce fighting men from the hills of Tennessee. The Talons were French, but a life of piracy brought them to America. Milo was half Talon, half Sackett. He'd been riding the outlaw trail for three years, but now he was hunting a man who had betrayed a trust with his own kin. And when he found him, Milo Talon would do no less than any Sackett or Talon before him. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

The Sacketts were fierce fighting men from the hills of Tennessee.  The Talons were French, but a life of piracy brought them to America.  Milo was half Talon, half Sackett.  He'd been riding the outlaw trail for three years, but now he was hunting a man who had betrayed a trust with his own kin.  And when he found him, Milo Talon would do no less than any Sackett or Talon before him. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 433 pages
• Publisher: Imprint unknown; Large type edition edition (October 4, 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 090400094X
• ISBN-13: 978-0904000948
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 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

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars First of two Milo Talon novels, May 31, 2000

By 

John K. Maddox - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man from the Broken Hills (Paperback)

A solid entry from Louis L'Amour. The novel is a suspensful, cattle rustling whodunit. Milo Talon, a back trail rider, decides to hook up with one of a group of ranches in West Texas. A range war between some or all of these outfits seems imminent. Milo strikes up a good friendship with a fellow Stirrup-Iron hand, meanwhile he is coming to grips with some of his past catching up to him. A nicely paced story that always kept my interest. Hint: Pay close attention to the first sixteen pages or so, otherwise it will not shape up as much of a mystery for you. Milo Talon appears in one more novel by L'Amour, but that's a different story. I have read a dozen of Louis L'Amour's titles, and this has become one of my favorites. "Light 'n set!"

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riding for the brand., March 23, 2000

By 

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

This review is from: The Man from the Broken Hills (Paperback)

Growing weary of the Outlaw Trail, Milo Talon (whose mother's maiden name is Sackett) starts riding for the brand with the men of the Stirrup-Iron outfit. Riders in this part of Texas take careful measure of each other because valuable young stock is getting rustled from the T Bar T, the HF Connected, the Circle B, and the Stirrup-Iron. Wandering cowpokes are treated with extreme caution. Talon encounters an old enemy, Rossiter, in the Stirrup-Iron owner. Further complicating Talon's life is a mysterious gunman inexplicably on his trail, a killer longhorn called Old Brindle, and the fiery tempered Ann Timberly, whose father owns the T Bar T. Besides cattle and strong, silent men, Texas grows a flock of beautiful women. Blonde and bratty Barby Ann is Rossiter's daughter. A box social at the Rock Springs schoolhouse introduces Talon to a shy girl named Lisa. And we should definitely mention the wonderfully enigmatic China Benn.

Louis L'Amour does an excellent job of breathing new life into the familiar elements of the western story. His knowledge of the Old West is extensive, and it serves him very well. His western stories are rich in authentic atmosphere. L'Amour writes enthusiastically of the lure of distant trails, the freedom of the big sky country, and the Code of the West without sounding trite and over-influenced by movie and TV westerns. His books are a fast read that allows the reader to escape from the toil, tension, and clamor of contemporary life. Good reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revisiting L'amour after many a year!, May 4, 2011

By 

K J Gardner - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man from the Broken Hills (Paperback)

It has been quite a long while since I have picked up a L'Amour western actually since I was young and wet behind the ears-perhaps 30 some years. Recently I have recaptured my interest in reading westerns finding authors that I hadn't read before such as Kelton, Jonas, Leonard, and so on. In boxes packed away for years I have boxes marked read and unread and there are many L'amour books that have been read and also a box of L'amours yet to be touched. Out of the unread box my first read in many a years was "The Man From the Broken Hills". I couldn't put the book down and was mesmerized and intrigued by the adventure of Milo Talon. A drifter from the famed heritage of Sacketts, lands a job herding cattle and soon finds him in a web of intrigue and mystery as the outfit he hired on for "Stirrup-Iron" and neighboring outfits are missing yearlings. The plot thickens and soon he is caught up finding pieces of the puzzle to make them fit dodging someone who is wanting him dead. Now I remember why I loved Louis L'amour so much how his characters are gritty, but real and how you can almost smell and feel the authenticity of the old west in his books. On top of that his stories seem true and you know the places he writes about are actually there. This was a quick read and I could hardly think of anything else other than to keep on reading to follow Milo Talons trail to the very end of this book. Lots of action with rustlers, gun hands, cattle, and great characters that coupled with a nice plot. If you haven't ever experienced L'amour this would be a good book to start with as even though I hadn't read one in a long while I again have found something I knew all along he is one of the best!!!