The Broken Gun: A Novel

By Louis L'Amour

Book Overview

Ninety years ago the Toomey brothers, along with twenty-five other men and four thousand head of cattle, vanished en route to Arizona. When writer and historian Dan Sheridan is invited to the missing... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553248472
• Release Date: September 1984
• Publisher: Bantam
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.8" x 0.5" x 4.1"

Customer Reviews

The Toomey Massacre

According to Louis L'Amour's book 'The Broken Gun' a massacre of 27 innocent men with their cattle herd stolen happened 90 years ago. The time setting of this book is 90 later as page 51 states: "This is not the nineteenth century, the day of the rustler and gun-fighter; this was the day of satellites and moon voyages." This book has Louis straddling both the 19th and 20th centuries, with the hero, Dan Sheridan, living out his life a few years after the Korean conflict. Part of the experience and knowledge from that armed conflict will help him and another man with whom he served in Korea face the people now trying to kill both of them. Since Louis taught survival courses during his years in the Army, much of that survival training is embedded in this story taking place in the Verde River Valley, Yavapai County, Arizona. This is an area laying just east of Phoenix, Arizona. The narrative continually swings back and forth from the present to the year 1872 when two men, Clyde and John Toomey, met their murderous ends. Decendents of the people who bushwhacked the Toomeys now without deed live on the land they stole from the Toomeys. In the process of writing his book, author Dan Sheridan seeks not only to save several lives in this outdoor adventure, but also seeks justice for the 27 men killed 90 years previous, by seeing the rightful heirs get their property back. Within this story a Bisley colt has part of a diary in the barrel of the gun, and this helps get Dan Sheridan's interest, plus it gives him information about the Toomeys. This is interesting to me too, for in a 1937 William Colt MacDonald story published in Western Story Magazine (3/6/37), entitled "Skelton Gold", a Texas wrangler buys an old .45 in Paso City with a map to hidden treasure in the barrel. Is this only a coincidence? Was Louis familiar with this short story? If you are a western fan in general, or a Louis L'Amour fan in specific you will find much in this book to enjoy. Sempter Fi.

THE BEST OF THE OLD WEST AND THE NEW!

THE BROKEN GUN combines the best of the Old West and the New as Dan Sheridan, a western historian and author, seeks to solve a ninety-year-old western mystery. Finding several pages of an old journal, rolled up and stuffed in the barrel of a broken gun, a Bisley Colt, Sheridan seeks to uncover the secrets spoken of in the journal. As he proceeds he finds that the account deals with events that, while seemingly forgotten and settled history, have spilled over into the present with frightening consequences. Louis L'Amour's THE BROKEN GUN is a sensational read that reminds us that, in the West, some things change while others remain alarmingly the same. THE HORSEMAN

great book

this is the first L.L. book i had read now ive read about 3/4 of them and im only 11 he is a great author

rivetting

Louis L`amour writes in a manner that places you in the story and holds your attention, you just can`t put it down untill you have read the entire book. Then it draws you back to read it again and again. You read of a man in the desert and you get thirsty. I have been reading L`amour books since about the age of seven and have read them untill the covers fall off and the pages crumble. I have allways wanted to meet Louis L`amour but never had the opportunity. All I can realy say is there shall never be another. May the legacy of Louis L`amour as the worlds greatest story teller live forever.

1st of Louis L'mours's books I read.Now, I'm addicted!!

1st of L.L'amour's book I ever read in th 1980's. Now, I am an addict to his books,reading some as many as 10 times!!