The Malpais Rider (A Double d Western)

By James Powell

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385175884
• ISBN13: 9780385175883
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Doubleday
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A winner!

After reading several "wimpy" westerns, The Malpais Rider was a welcome real western read. Grub-line rider Cam Stallings goes south from Colorado looking for work, his horse is shot and falls on him, and someone takes his Winchester and sixgun and leaves him for dead. Fortunately for him, Stretch B owner Stacy and two Navajos who work for her find him and take him home with them. Turns out Stacy's sister Mala and her Cross Arrow rancher husband are trying to run Stacy off her own ranch. It's both Mala's hatred of her little sister and Mala's husband's desire for the ranch that caused them to run off the Stretch B crew, beat the foreman senseless, and try to kill Stallings when he begins to help Stacy. This relatively short novel packs a thrilling plot, plenty of fist fights and gunplay, and near the end flight to the malpais. Any reader of Louis L'Amour knows what the malpais means - difficulty and death to the unwary and the careless but refuge for those who respect its dangers. The sisters confront each other and both fire their rifles at the same time. Both fall. I won't say who survives but in a good western, good always triumphs over evil. Malpais Rider is one of the best westerns I've read in years of reading westerns. It's really worth your while to locate a copy for yourself.