Off the Mangrove Coast » (Reissue)

Louis L'Amour's 115 title-plus bibliography is astonishing on its own; even more so given the fact that his writing career did not start in earnest until his 40s. Simply being prolific, however, does not a bestselling author make. L'Amour's Western stories, as written by a real-life adventurer, capture the survivalism and code of honor on which the American frontier mythology rests.

A collection of classic adventure...

From the jungles of Borneo to the hidden canyons of the American West, from small-town fight clubs to a Parisian café at the end of World War II, here are tales of betrayal and revenge, courage and cowardice, glory and greed, as only Louis L'Amour can tell them.

Here is L'Amour at his very best. A charismatic boxer itches to fight all comers—but his only shot at the championship is in beating the man who ruined his father....

A beautiful movie star finds a dead man in her apartment and begs her ex-lover, a tough private eye, to clear her name....

A reluctant hero guides a diamond-hunting couple up a river ruled by headhunters and pirates in pursuit of a legendary stone and the mysterious warlord who guards it....

A young renegade sails the South China Sea with a trio of dangerous men in search of treasure, but when it's time to divide the prize, can he trust any of them?

Combining electrifying action scenes, vivid historical detail, and characters who seem to leap off the page, these spectacular stories honor the legend of Louis L'Amour.

Publishers Weekly

Bantam has published 117 of L'Amour's books, with this collection being the second posthumous story collection (the first was Beyond the Great Snow Mountains) in a projected series of four. Duke LaMoore, as he was sometimes called, is probably best known for his westerns, but the versatile author was also beloved for his successful historical and contemporary fiction. These nine stories, originally published in magazines of the 1940s and '50s, feature typical and endearing L'Amour heroes--detectives, prize-fighters, Far East adventurers, cowboys, sailors and some hardboiled women. Only one story is a western. The others are more contemporary and take place all over the world, from Los Angeles and Paris to the jungles of Borneo. L'Amour's short stories are characterized by his legendary vibrancy, an element of mystery or suspense and recurring themes of revenge, greed, loyalty, jealousy or honor. In "Secret of Silver Springs," three outlaws unexpectedly face a tricky and deadly moral dilemma. "Time of Terror" is a clever mystery about a dead man who is not really dead, and a hapless victim whose quick wits prove that the reader should "beware of an honest man." The title tale depicts four desperate men searching for sunken treasure off the coast of Borneo, only to find greed and murder as their reward. Best, however, is "The Unexpected Corpse," a tightly woven whodunit with a "private shamus" and a delicious actress in over their heads in a puzzling murder investigation. Crisply written and fast-paced, these stories will have the author's fans clamoring for more, the sooner the better. (May) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|