The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour: The Frontier Stories, Volume 5 » (Reprint)

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.

Louis L’Amour’s world is built on those dramatic moments when men and women cast their fears, doubts, and pasts behind them and plunge into the unknown–into split-second decisions with life-and-death consequences. Nowhere is that more evident than in this latest collection of stories set on the American frontier. Here L’Amour takes us across a bold, beautifully rendered landscape where strangers may come to trust–or kill–one another; where old scores haunt new lives and the wrong choice leaves unwitting victims. Even at the best of times, this is a world in which every man and woman must be responsible for their own survival.

This keepsake volume features unforgettable moments and timeless characters. From fugitives to visionaries, from fortune seekers and drifters seeking a new life to young women trying to build homes in an all too often lawless world, the characters in these pulse-pounding stories are vintage L’Amour. Together in this vivid, rollicking collection of stories, they bring to life the American spirit and confirm Louis L’Amour’s place at the very top of the pantheon of American writers.

Publishers Weekly

The fourth volume of the late L'Amour's short stories takes the author out of his familiar American frontier setting and into desolate and dangerous locales around the world, from "a narrow fjord at the end of the earth" on the southern coast of Chile to a "lonely isolated spot in the Coral Sea." While the characters are not traditional L'Amour, as "men of quick wit and valor" they share similar characteristics and values; freighter captain Ponga Jim Mayo, who plies the treacherous waters of the Indian Ocean during World War II (and is featured in nine of these 45 stories), succinctly sums up their worldview: "I'll make my own rules and abide by the consequences." The stories reflect the author's own youthful wanderings-as seaman, soldier and professional boxer-and, having been mostly written for pulp adventure magazines, are predictably formulaic. L'Amour's first publication, "Death Westbound," a Depression-era hobo story, crackles with his trademark prose: "Sometimes the shacks were pretty good guys, but a railroad dick is always a louie." No L'Amour fan will want to miss this collection. Afterword by L'Amour's son, Beau L'Amour. (Nov. 7) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.