The Arrogant Guns

by Lewis B. Patten

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0451138643
• ISBN13: 9780451138644
• Release Date: October 1985
• Publisher: Signet Book
• Length: 1 Pages

Customer Reviews

Taut and satisfying Western

This lean piece of 1960's Western pulp writing unfolds mainly in flashback; we meet hard edged rancher "Lafferty" and his protege ,the moral focus of the book ,"Matt Wyatt" as they wait in a rail station on a rain lashed New Mexico night for the arrival of a train bearing hired mercenaries ready to defy the US army at Lafferty's instigation.The tale takes us through the how and why of the situation ,told mainly through the eyes of Matt .Matt lost his parents to Indians when a small child and has been raised by Lafferty an ambitious man who sets out to build a ranching and commercial empire in New Mexico .His marriage to a former saloon girl is essentially loveless but does priuce a son "Link"who like his mother grows to cordially detest Lafferty .While away fighting for the Union in the Civil War ,Laffert loses his wife ,killed by one of her many lovers and Lafferty grows ever more ruthless in his quest for power and wealth ,not scrupling to take the law into his own hands.When Link falls foul of the law the stage is set for the final and violent confrontation that brings the book to a powerful climax.Lafferty is an example of the type of character that figured prominently in many movies and books of the era -a ruthless,tyrannical man whose positive virtues of energy and determination have soured ,bringing him into conflict with the law as ir=t spreads throughout the West (eg The Burl Ives and Edward G Robinson figures in .respectively .The Big Country and The Violent Men).Figures typical of a transitional society ,ambivalent and compellingThe book is a model of steamlined storytelling and only the rather pallid female characters weaken the grip of the hard edged and for its time quite violent narrativeNot a wasted word in a terse tale from an absolute genre master