Man Riding West

This book contains six stories and one novella, The Trail to Peach Meadow Canyon, which is the best of the bunch. Since there is no publication data presented in the book it is hard to tell when these were written and published for the first time, but these are early entries in the LL catalogue. The novella was expanded several years later by LL to produce the short novel, Son of a Wanted Man which say daylight in May 1984 when Bantam his publisher couldn't get enough new material from him to satisfy the public demand for his work. And it shows, as the quality of that novel is not up to LL's usual standards. But all in all this book needs to be on your LL shelf to complete the collection.

I have trouble with the main character in "Man Riding West." Personally I would not have gotten into the situation that the he did. Sometimes it seems that Louis L'Amour was scratching around for a story line.The main character, Jim Gary, has been away from home for some time and is slowly drifting back when he joins up with some men running cattle. But, something isn't right with the setup, and as the days pass, Jim wonders how he can extract himself. Then one night, during a storm, hearding cattle, Jim's whole world is turned upside down.The audio is crisp and clear, and easily heard in a car environment. The characters are well cast and the special effects quite good. Because of the dramatization I enjoyed the story anyway and recommend the audio book. Run time: 60 minutes.