Loving it. The plot turns are awfully convenient, but I love the language, and then there's useful stuff like this:"I'd backed up against that grove on purpose. Looked at from down below no smoke would show against the white of the tree trunks and the gray-green of the leaves...There's no prettier place than a stand of aspen. The elk and beaver like the bitter inner bark, and you'll nearly always find them where there's aspen. There's no thing that provides more grub for wildlife than the aspen grove.There's usually wood around. The aspen is self-pruning, and as it grows taller it sheds its lower branches, just naturally reaching for the sun. Those branches dry out quickly and make excellent kindling."***Well, my initial enthusiasm dimmed. The book had some problems I found hard to ignore.The "useful stuff" I admired above was an instance, I came to see, of L'Amour's tendency to cache gobbets of undigested research here and there (how's that for a disgusting image? undigested research, ew!).The convenience of the plot turns was annoying ("What, there's no way into the ranch, you say? Well, here's a girl who know an old secret trail that no one else knows about..."). And, L'Amour has a bad habit of telegraphing the plot, too-- in one paragraph he'll be all, Oh, no! I hope the bad guys don't catch us on fire! and then, two paragraphs later, what do you know! The bad guys set fire to the place.The hero, Logan Sackett, keeps saying he's "mean", and is supposed to be some kind of outlaw-- but we only ever see him being noble (okay, he kills a bunch of people, but in context it's noble). He's also distressingly invincible.I don't know if I'll read the other L'Amours I found, after all.But there were a couple of things I really like about this book:The phrase "since who flunk the chunk"-- a beautiful, mysterious phrase! It means "for a long time", or "a long time ago", but I can't figure out where it comes from.The term "back trail", which can be a verb, meaning "to follow", or a noun-- and the idea of tracking or trailing in general. I like the idea that wherever a person goes he or she leaves behind signs.
Fans of Louis L’Amour’s Sackett books know that quite a few of the books focus on three brothers, Tell, Orrin, and Tyrel. There are also a good number of books in the series that focus on other Sacketts; cousins to the three brothers or other such relations. Ride the Dark Trail keys in on Logan Sackett of the Clinch Mountain Sacketts.All Sacketts are tough, but the Clinch Mountain Sacketts are especially known to be hard men who skirt the edges of the law. In spite of his reputation, Logan Sackett would never shoot a man in the back, and he would never mistreat a lady, or leave one to fend for herself. And above all else, even the Clinch Mountain Sacketts know that nothing is more important than kin.That’s why, when Logan runs across Em Talon, desperately trying to defend her home and her land from those who would take it for themselves, he can’t help but step in on her side. And when Logan discovers that Em Talon was born Emily Sackett and grew up on Clinch Mountain, the deal is sealed. The bad guys are about to find out that when you buy trouble with a Sackett, you are investing in a whole heap of misery.Narrator Terrence Mann handles L’Amour’s audiobooks very well. He can do some different voices, and his western drawl is suitable for the occasion. In case you’re wondering, this is not the same Terrence Mann from the film Field of Dreams. That was a fictional character. This Terrence Mann is a very real actor who has appeared in many films such as Big Top Peewee, and all four of the Critters movies.Nobody did the old west like Louis L’Amour. Many of his novels are relatively short, but he packs a whole lot of story into them.Steven Brandt @ Audiobook-Heaven
What do You think about Ride The Dark Trail (1984)?
Jordan and I started reading this together while visiting Hatch a couple of weekends ago. For some reason, Louis L'Amour just fits the bill when you are hanging out in Southern Utah.(Genre:Fiction/western) Finished it up by reading it with my husband (who was a huge L'Amour fan when he was young). Entertaining read that kept my attention throughout. Classic western story--Drifter Logan Sackett comes to town and finds a distant relative in serious trouble. Emily Sackett Talon is an older widow who is trying to hold on to the ranch that she and her husband built together. Her 2 sons have left home and she is alone. Her husband was dry gulched by a local man who wants the ranch and is trying to kill Em, who like a true Sackett, is refusing to lay down and die. Em is old and tired, though, and even though she is a great shot, she has to sleep sometime and she knows that the hired men at her gate will eventually catch her when her guard is down and it will be all over. Logan knows that she needs his help and protection and he aims to keep her safe until he can get word to her son and his friend, famous gun Milo Talon.
—Darla
I found out via Wikipedia that I had been missing out on a TON of Sackett books by Louis L'amour all this time! So I wrote down a list of the titles I did not already own and took off to my favourite book store run by this old guy in a fedora who is so awesome. He saw my list, saw me pawing through the one shelf he had of Louis L'amour westerns, and then asked if I wanted to see the rest of them in the basement. I have never seen so many Louis L'amour books in one place in all my life and I found this gem there! I love reading about Logan because he is one of the 'outlaws' of the family, and I love that it brought the Talons in on this as well since I have read a book or two with Milo. Definitely loved it!
—Amber
Nobody does the West like Louis L’Amour! The scenery, the ranchin,’ the ridin’ the shootin’ . . . Yeah, I know the real wild West wasn’t that wild, but the stories are way more exciting with plenty of villains and plenty of shootings and fistfights. The hero, Logan Sackett, comes from the notorious Sackett clan. He’s big, he’s tough, and he’s mean, but he surely does stick up for women in trouble. He also seems to speak two different languages. Mostly he’s a rough and ready cowpoke saying things like “I taken a bit of lead an’ I was all in. I knew I was in bad trouble.” Other times he talks like a college professor. But who cares? The women are purty, the fists fly and the guns blaze, and the villains git theirs. It’s L’Amour at his best.
—Christy
