Utah Blaine: A Novel

This is another of the "Jim Mayo" westerns, and a good one too. It is the story of Utah Blaine, a man fast with a gun and fast with his fists, who helps save his friend's ranch from the greedy "large" ranchers in the area. A good "traditional" western which helped make Louis L'Amour one of the best writers of that genre. It's too bad he lost that edge in latter years and began to philosophize more and more.

I am a huge western genre fan in books and movies. So I have read many westerns. Without doubt Louis L'Amour is the master of western writers; his books make you feel like you are there in the old west. Utah Blaine is one of his better stories and I highly recommend it !

Yes, this book is a perfect starting point if you are new to Louis L'amour. How do I know? Because this is the book that started me reading Louis oh so many years ago when I was in the fourth grade. Utah Blaine is all Louis L'amour. It is high-action, fast-paced, and just plain good story-telling. You won't be disappointed.

This book was originally published by Ace books back in 1954 under the name Jim Mayo, when Louis was bridging the pulp western magazines of the day, while later moving into his long running contract with Bantam Books. The setting of the book is central Arizona in the Verde River Valley, pretty much between Blood Basin and the Mazatzal Mountains. For the time of its writing, Utah Blaine is a very good book both in style and content. In general the book tells the story of Joe Neal's 46 Connected ranch and range of 300,000 prize acres of rangeland, with approximately 50,000 head of cattle on that range. An unsuccessful attempt is made on Joe's life, and later he is killed. The playing out of all the bad guys against the good guys, which at times number only 3, is the matrix of this western. I'm an inveterate western reader, and in my humble opinion a reader just has to 'suspend the ole disbelief' when reading these shoot-em-ups. Louis was one of the best of western writers, but he had some equals, and a few even better. One thing that I did not care for in this western is the name of Utah Blaine's eventual girlfriend/wife: Angie Kinyon; that name is too close for me at least, to the later Ange Kerry with Tell Sackett, in a couple later Sackett novels. Also, after "Rip" Coker has been gunshot, suffering 11 wounds, he is sidelined from the story. And at book's ending, we still are not told whether "Rip", will live or die, although it seems that he will pull through. Coker, as a Ranger, also appears in several of the Chick Bowdre Texas Ranger stories, too. Another item is the cache of supplies and ammunition, Utah says that they will be stashed in three separate locations, but never, ever, gives us more than the one original location at Cypress Butte. And never does he resupply anywhere near Cypress Butte, in general most of his resupply comes from a couple of ranch houses. Please do not, I repeat, DO NOT, take any of these as slams against the book. These are only incongruities that can exist in any number of Louis' books. I've read that at any one time he may have had as many as 4 typewriters going with a different story in each one. Would not be difficult to leave a few items ragged when swinging intermittenly from one typewritter to another. Louis L'Amour wrote some fine, classic, western stories while many others of his are only 3-star jobs; however, in the main I find him to be one of the best. One reviewer here said just to skip this book, with that I cannot agree, for this is no better nor any worse than most 3 or 4 star westerns. And at present I have several thousand westerns on my shelves. Read this one and enjoy, that is afterall, mainly why Louis spent his lifetime writing more than 100 of them. Semper Fi.

This gunslinger doesn't take crap from anyone. Stuck in a middle of a range war, he delivers what others fear, his gun's fury. Although L'amour carries some unbelievable moments in this story, there is a fun flowing read to the story.

A great L'Amour title, originally published in 1954 under the name Jim Mayo. As he did so often, L'Amour takes a stock dime-western situation, the range war, and weaves his story telling magic! The title character, a legendary town tamer, is very well fleshed out as he attempts to keep a pack of land-grabbing jackals from dividing up two of the largest, richest cattle ranches in Arizona. First they murder the owners...then the gang comes gunning for Blaine! Solid plot, great dialogue and some of L'Amour's best descriptive passages painting the rugged beauty of the mountains and valleys of the American Southwest.