Honor at Daybreak

To be honest with you, this is not one of my favorite Elmer Kelton books. Perhaps it is because it is "modern" set in the 1920's. Perhaps it is the subject--oil. I don't rightly know. There are some fine characters in this book, none more memorable than Sheriff Dave Buckalew, the man too proud to give in, and too stubborn to give up. What we have here in this book is in effect the same thing which happened to any town when there is in influx of people, bad people--bootleggers, gamblers, fortune hunters, and the unseemly establishments which go with them. The end of track towns, the end of trail towns, the gold and silver camps, all faced the same disastrous change as did Caprock. How the Sheriff gets the town together to fight this onslaught is what this book is about, and how they fight back to regain their town and assure it has a future. The writing is on par with any other Elmer Kelton book, his history is impeccable as always, but for some reason the story and I just did not connect, as it usually does with his books. It's not a bad book, just a readable one.