RIVERS WEST -- Louis L'Amour

Bantam Book -- pb
New York -- ©1975 -- 179pp
ISBN: 0-553-25436-7

When a young ship-builder stumbles upon a dying man, he also stumbles upon a plot to take over the western frontier. A beautiful woman leads the charge against the nefarious plot.

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Although I don't generally admit it in casual conversation, I believe that I own nearly every Louis L'Amour book out there.

Louis L'Amour was not a great writer, but he was a good storyteller. He knew how to craft a story that keeps your interest as you read. Usually.

This particular book was work for me. It took three or four chapters before I felt interested enough in the main character, and then I struggled to keep caring. Also, whether it's unique to this particular book or common in L'Amour books, I'm not sure, but there was an awful lot of lucky coincidence that kept our main hero moving forward in his goal. In this particular book, he was left for dead in the river, but by coincidence he was picked up by a friendly gentleman in a small craft at the last possible moment. And by lucky coincidence, that gentlemen had some information that would prove to be useful in the hero's quest. And so it goes.

I've also decided that I'm a little tired of L'Amour's need to have a boxing scene in his novels. His wiry, smaller heros always seemed to have great skill with the fists and are able to take down the local, undefeated Goliaths.

It wasn't a terrible read, but it didn't capture me like other L'Amour novels have