I just finished Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (speaking of "punishment...!") and subsequently picked up the last of the Kilkenny novels. What a difference... It took Dostoyevsky 600 pages to have a student commit a crime, then hem and haw ambivalently before resolving to turn himself in. By contrast, in just a handful of pages, LL plants the seeds of a full-blown range war, with multiple chess pieces in constant motion around the board. Within ten pages I had a complete grasp of the physical setting, the motivations of the characters on both sides, and the advancement of the plot. I'm not knocking Dostoyevsky, by the way. My point is merely that LL has an unsurpassed capacity for economy of storytelling, using a little to say a lot. As is typical of later LLs, this one is also chockablock with invaluable folk wisdom.
#1. "RE: The Mountain Valley War" In response to Reply # 0
There is so many good ones to talk about, and I love them all.. Just finished three of them.. 'The Shadow Riders', 'Fallon' and 'Where the long grass blows'... Putting L'Amour aside for awhile. I'm onto a new adventure...A non- western, but my second read and a very good one by C.M. Curtis. 'Across The Dark', a story about a mine disaster in 1925 that has mysterious doubts about the happening....Will elaborate more, later, if anyone is interested....Gotta' get ready to go to work...See ya'. Loved 'The Mountain Valley War'....
#3. "RE: The Mountain Valley War" In response to Reply # 2
Putting Louis aside for awhile since I have read almost everything he published, except for some short stories... Just finished another of my favorite authors books on mine disasters and some westerns. 'Across The Dark' a story of a mining disaster in 1925 which was concluded to be just that... 'Across The Dark' begins in the 1920s with Hank and Eliza Steadman. two people deeply in love, and the tale of Hank and his crew of thirteen miners who go into the mine one day and never come out. The one surviving miner, John Sanger, claims that Hank took his men too the wrong part of the mine and he alone is responsible for the deaths of his men. But, is Sangers story true, or is he lying to cover up his own sordid secret? 50 years later enters Cuthbert Sweet, rich, round and lovably eccentric, he conforms to no stereotype. He likes people and people like him, well, everyone except for those with something to hide.... Our not-so swashbuckling hero has inherited the mine and stumbles onto something that could clear up the fifty year old mystery.. Cuthbert Sweet is very rich, somewhat of an amateur sleuth and discovers some surprises…
If ya' wanna' know more, you'll have to read the novel. I highly recommend it... Cuthbert Sweet is another mining story which takes him into a foreign land ("Ghost Of The Sun')
