Hombre by Elmore Leonard

A riveting classic Western

Elmore Leonard is famous for his crime novels, many of which have been adapted into popular films in recent decades, but back in the 1960s and early ‘70s Leonard was known for his Westerns. Leonard’s fifth novel Hombre, published in 1961, is likely his best-known Western, due largely to the 1967 film adaptation starring Paul Newman, one of the best American-made Western movies of the 1960s—a decade that was full of great Westerns. The film Hombre changes some of the characters’ names and relationships, but the overall story is very faithful to the novel. Just as the movie is one of the all-time classics in the genre of Western film, Leonard’s novel is an outstanding work that holds a similar position in the Western genre of literature. Hombre the novel is riveting from start to finish.

For various reasons too complicated to explain here, a half dozen folks are riding in a stagecoach headed South towards Bisbee, Arizona. Among them is John Russell, whom some call by the nickname of Hombre. Russell is three-quarters White, one-quarter Mexican. As a child, he was abducted by Apaches and lived with them for several years, becoming accustomed to their way of life. As a young man, he reentered White society, but many of the townspeople still consider him an “Indian,” which, among most Whites in those days, was not a compliment.

When the passengers in the stagecoach find out about Russell’s Apache background, they decide they don’t want him riding in their presence anymore, so he is asked to sit outside with the driver. When the stagecoach encounters trouble, however (as stagecoaches often do in Western stories), and lives are in danger, to whom do they turn to save their bacon and guide them to safety? Russell, of course; he being the most capable man in the party. Russell hasn’t forgotten, however, the insult and ill treatment from his fellow passengers, and it’s unclear how much he’s willing to help them. As for the trouble encountered by the stagecoach, that’s better left unspoiled. The danger is multiplied, however, by the fact that this party is in the middle of the Arizona desert, and water is scarce.

Hombre is a revisionist Western, in that it takes a nontraditional approach to heroism and a more honest look at the status of Native Americans and Mexicans in American society than you’re likely to find in an old John Wayne movie of the 1940s or ‘50s. Although there is still a touch of Wild West romanticism to this story, for the most part Leonard’s novel is very realistic. There are no white-hatted saints among this cast of characters, and no one performs any heroic feats of gunplay that are outside the realm of reason. Unlike many Westerns of the 1960s, Leonard chooses not to ramp up the violence. In fact, the objective of the characters in this book seems to be to fire as few shots as possible and make them count. The plot is a cat-and-mouse game between Russell and his adversaries. Everyone’s actions and reactions are realistic and ring true to the natures of the individual characters. My eyes were glued to the page as I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. As is often the case in Leonard’s books, the dialogue is pitch-perfect—clever and sharp without being ostentatiously so, and with a slight touch of humor that doesn’t belie the peril of the situation.

I’m not a habitual reader of Westerns, but I love Leonard’s work in this genre. Hombre is one of the best Westerns I’ve ever read, up there with Charles Portis’s True Grit. Leonard’s novels Valdez is Coming and Last Stand at Saber River are also top-notch entries in this genre.

Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard

Crime caper in the Spanish-American War

Elmore Leonard got his start writing Westerns back in the 1950s and eventually became one of America’s bestselling authors in the genre of crime fiction. His 1998 book Cuba Libre, a historical novel set during the Spanish-American War, is somewhat of an intersection between these two genres. Though technically not a Western, it does often read like a horse opera that just happens to be set in the Caribbean.

The story opens in 1898, right after the USS Maine has been sunk in Havana Harbor but shortly before the United States has declared war on Spain. Ben Tyler, a cowboy by trade, gets out of Yuma Territorial Prison, where he has been incarcerated for bank robbery. He meets up with his old friend and former ranch boss Charlie Burke, who recruits Tyler into a scheme to ship horses from Galveston to Cuba. The horses are just a cover, however, for a smuggled shipment of guns to be sold to the Cuban revolutionaries fighting for independence from Spain. When Tyler and Burke arrive in Cuba, however, they are double-crossed by their contacts in Cuba and harassed by Cuban law enforcement. This puts Tyler and Burke in a difficult position from which they must escape if they hope to obtain their hard-earned profit and take revenge on their antagonists.

I’m a fan of Leonard’s writing in general, but this is not his best work. Transplanting his usual crime caper fare to this historical setting should have worked out fine, but here in some cases the history gets in the way of the crime fiction and vice versa. Just when the heist plot seems to be gaining momentum, the reader gets diverted into a historical aside. I don’t think it’s necessary that the reader know the barrel width of every gun on every battleship, nor the failures of every general participating in the war. I prefer Leonard’s earlier Westerns, which would sometimes incorporate historical information—such as the Civil War in Last Stand at Sabrer River—but in a less obtrusive way. The plot of Cuba Libre is a bit low on thrills. There’s a comic undertone that nullifies much of the danger that would realistically occur in this scenario. The most exciting scene in the book happens towards the front, and the conclusion of the novel is less than climactic.

The characters are also not particularly interesting. They are rather thinly drawn and somewhat generic. If this book were made into a movie like most of Leonard’s novels, some quirky or charismatic actors could bring some interesting life to these characters, but on the page they come across as pretty bland. It’s also disappointing that only a few of the supporting characters are Cubans or Spaniards. All of the leads—the hero, the best friend, the leading lady, the villain—are white Americans. You learn more about the sugar industry and the American military’s part in the Spanish-American War than you do about Cuban culture or the revolution.

What Leonard is consistently good at is writing clever and lively dialogue and creating crime schemes that pit multiple parties against one another in configurations that keep the reader guessing as to the outcome. Both of those qualities are evident in Cuba Libre, but to a lesser extent than I recall from other books of his that I’ve read. The plot here feels safer and more predictable than the gritty realism of many of his Westerns or even the less serious contemporary adventures of his Raylan Givens novels. It’s still Elmore Leonard, though, and although Cuba Libre is unlikely to show up on any top ten list of his works, it’s still better than 90 percent of the crime fiction that’s out there.

Last Stand at Saber River by Elmore Leonard

Another riveting Western in the classic Leonard style

Nobody writes a Western like Elmore Leonard! Though better known nowadays for his crime novels and their movie and TV adaptations (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, Justified), Leonard started his career as a writer of Westerns and in my opinion is one of the best that ever worked in the genre. Western novels often venture into corny territory, but not so with Leonard’s books. Last Stand at Saber River was originally published in 1956, but it reads like a Western movie of the 1970s that might have starred Clint Eastwood or Lee Marvin. It was not adapted into film, however, until 1997, when it was released as a made-for-TV production starring Tom Selleck.

After years of fighting for the Confederacy on Civil War battlegrounds out East, Rancher Paul Cable returns to his home in Arizona with his wife and three small children. Upon reaching their small community in the Saber River Valley, Cable’s first stop is the local general store. There he finds his old friend the storekeeper has since passed away, to be replaced by a surly one-armed character named Janroe. This mysterious new neighbor informs the Cables that their homestead is presently occupied by the Kidston brothers, former acquaintances from before the war. Undaunted, Cable ventures out to the old homestead to inform the Kidstons that its rightful owners have returned home. The Kidstons, however, refuse to leave, asserting that Cable lost any rights to the land when he went off to fight for the Confederacy. (By this time, Arizona was controlled by the Union.) Though Saber River may be a long way from the Civil War battlefronts, heated animosity still exists between Union and Confederate sympathizers. With no law to aid him in reclaiming and defending his home, Cable takes matters into his own hands, but not without violent resistance.

What is great about Leonard’s Westerns is his no-nonsense realism. While he doesn’t turn his back entirely on the mythic aspects of Wild West lore, the characters in Leonard’s stories act like real people. There are no cut-and-dried saints and sinners here. Everyone has shades of gray in their moral code and believable motivations behind their behavior. The action scenes are riveting because they are logically constructed within the bounds of possibility. Leonard moves his gunslingers around like pieces on a chessboard, allowing the reader to imagine himself caught in the perilous situation described. The victor of these conflicts is not a superhero capable of remarkable feats with a gun but rather the one who manages to logically outsmart his opponent. Because these are not black-and-white, good-versus-evil shootouts, the danger feels real. Leonard avoids typical Western clichés to deliver a plot that is unpredictable and immensely compelling.

When Leonard originally started publishing short stories in Western pulp magazines, his early entries were more in the traditional realm of folkloric cowboy tales, as seen in The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard. His storytelling evolved over time, as did literature and film as a whole, to become darker, grittier, and more daring. Last Stand at Saber River is an example of Leonard’s mature, idiosyncratic style, yet it still falls a little short of the hard-boiled intensity of 1970’s Valdez Is Coming. Nevertheless, if you are looking for a great Western read, it’s a safe bet that any of Leonard’s Western novels from 1953 to 1972 will fill the bill.

Valdez is Coming by Elmore Leonard

A near-perfect Western

I am not a frequent reader of Western genre fiction, but in Elmore Leonard’s case I can make an exception. Leonard is best known as a writer of sharp-witted crime fiction, but he got his start writing in the Western genre. His first published works were short stories in Western pulp fiction magazines, and his first novels were Westerns. Valdez is Coming, the eighth of Leonard’s 45 novels, was published in 1970. The following year it was made into a good Western film starring Burt Lancaster in the title role. Whether you’ve seen the film or not, Valdez is Coming is an excellent Western novel and an exciting read.

As the novel opens, a crowd of armed men are gathered before a shack where they have cornered a suspected army deserter and murderer. Powerful rancher Frank Tanner is the driving force behind this makeshift posse, which consists mostly of his hired gunmen. Town constable Roberto “Bob” Valdez arrives on the scene and suggests trying to talk to the suspect before resorting to violence. That plan goes south, however, and the accused man is killed before it is discovered that he wasn’t the killer after all. Present at the scene is the dead man’s wife, an Apache woman visibly pregnant. Valdez wonders what will become of her and her child now that her husband is gone. He feels everyone present is responsible for the wrongful killing of the man, and they should all chip in and pull together $500 to compensate the widow for her loss. Valdez thinks Tanner, the leader of the group, the one who made the accusation in the first place, and the wealthiest landowner around, should set an example by making the biggest contribution. When Valdez presents this idea to Tanner, however, the response is not only negative but brutally violent and demeaning. Valdez, a Mexican American, has never been taken seriously as a lawman by the powerful Whites of the town. Little do they know, however, of his military past as a tracker and hunter of hostile Apaches, a past that has provided him with a particular set of skills that enables him to take revenge upon Tanner and his henchmen, making them pay for their arrogance and brutality.

While revenge stories are a dime a dozen in the Western genre, rarely do they begin with such an original premise nor feature such a unique hero as Valdez. I often find Western novels boring, but once I picked up Valdez is Coming I didn’t want to put it down. The main attraction here is Leonard’s smart and snappy prose. This book is only 160 pages long, but it’s hard to recall a book in which so much is said in so few words. Each word is carefully chosen and appropriately placed in a terse and taut phrasing. There’s no fat to chew in this lean and sinewy narrative. And every line of dialogue is spot-on, with a wry sense of humor bubbling underneath. Leonard’s characters deliver speech that sounds like real conversation, not literary book-talk. The action sequences are nail-bitingly suspenseful and vividly drawn without getting bogged down in the logistics of who rode where and who shot who. Whether he knew a film adaptation was forthcoming or not, Leonard clearly had a cinematic vision when he wrote the novel, as evident from the screenplay quality of its scene staging and plot trajectory.

I had previously read The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, most of the contents of which were originally published in 1950s magazines. That’s a good collection, but nothing in it is quite in the same league as Valdez is Coming. Now I’d like to read more of Leonard’s early Western novels, like Hombre and Last Stand at Saber River. Judging by Valdez is Coming, if anyone can win me over to this genre of literature, Leonard can.
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Raylan: A Novel by Elmore Leonard

An odd hybrid of Justified and Leonard’s previous novels
Elmore Leonard first introduced readers to Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens in the 1993 novel Pronto, then quickly followed it up with Riding the Rap, and later delved deeper into the character’s origins in the 2001 short story “Fire in the Hole.” A lot has happened to Raylan since then, of course. He now has his own television series, Justified on FX. Leonard’s latest novel, simply entitled Raylan, although published in 2012, was written before the second season of the TV show. While the first season of Justified was pretty faithful to “Fire in the Hole,” they did depart from Leonard’s writings in many instances, creating new characters and plot lines. With this new novel, Leonard now has the opportunity to reciprocate by borrowing ideas from the show. In turn, the writers of the show have heavily mined this novel’s characters and plot for the second, third, and fourth seasons of Justified, though altering them liberally. The result is a strange correspondence between Leonard’s writings and the TV show. Though often identical, at times they are like parallel universes.

When Raylan and fellow marshal Rachel Brooks set out to apprehend a drug dealer named Angel Arenas, they find him in a bath tub full of ice with his kidneys removed. The next day, the mysterious organ thief tries to sell Angel’s kidneys right back to him. Raylan figures Angel’s associates the Crowes are involved in the scheme. This marijuana dealing family consists of patriarch Pervis Crowe and his dim-witted sons Coover and Dickie. Fans of Justified will recognize these characters as Coover and Dickie Bennett. Their father Pervis was replaced by mama Mags Bennett, one of the more unforgettable characters in the show’s run. This is just one instance of how the two narratives differ. In Leonard’s world, to offer another example, Raylan has kids, though they are only mentioned and never seen.

Leonard is known for his snappy, intelligent dialogue, and he plays to his strength here. The book is at least 90% dialogue, and reads very much like a screenplay. In fact, it could have benefited from less talk and more action. The brief gunfights are hardly suspenseful, as the characters can barely shut up long enough to draw their weapons. Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Raylan is that it’s not really a novel, but rather a collection of three episodes. After the kidney thief story line is resolved in the first hundred pages, Leonard just moves on to another matter entirely. There’s little continuity from beginning to end, and thus none of the complex overall structure that one expects from a book subtitled “A Novel”. Fans of Leonard’s writing who don’t watch Justified might find themselves a little lost in this book. Viewers of the show seem to be his intended audience. On the other hand, Justified enthusiasts may find the book too light and fluffy for their tastes. Leonard softens many of the harder, grittier edges of his story in favor of a more comedic approach. Toward the end of the book there are a couple of near slapstick scenes which are too over-the-top to be believable.

Ultimately, the character of Raylan Givens has been molded and shaped by actor Timothy Olyphant to the point where it’s not wholly Leonard’s creation anymore. Although he incorporates elements from Justified in this book, it only sporadically captures the spirit of the show. When judged solely on its merits as a Leonard novel, it’s good but nothing spectacular. “Fire in the Hole” is still the best Raylan story Leonard has ever written.
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The Raylan Givens 3-Book Collection by Elmore Leonard

An entertaining read, whether you're a fan of Justified or not
This Kindle collection is a repackaging of three previously published Elmore Leonard books, all featuring Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, the character now made famous by the TV series Justified. The first two works, Pronto and Riding the Rap, are novels originally published in 1993 and 1995, repectively. If you’re buying this volume solely because you’re a fan of Justified, you should be warned that Raylan is not necessarily the star of these books, but rather a member of an ensemble cast. In these novels the bad guys get just as much ink as he does, if not more. The third book in the Kindle file, Fire in the Hole, is a collection of short stories, first published in 2002 under the title When the Women Come Out to Dance. Only one of the stories, entitled “Fire in the Hole,” features Raylan Givens. The other eight stories cover a wide gamut within the crime and western genres and beyond.

The first book, Pronto, begins by introducing us to Harry Arno, a 65-year-old World War II veteran and longtime Miami bookie. The feds, in an attempt to nail Arno’s mobster boss, spread the rumor that Harry is stealing from his employers. Raylan is assigned to protect Harry, but when Harry flees for his life, thus becoming a fugitive, it’s Raylan’s job to apprehend him. Over the course of the book, much is revealed about Raylan’s past in Harlan County, the Glynco Academy, and elsewhere. Riding the Rap picks up where Pronto left off. While Pronto was very much a character driven novel, in Riding the Rap the characters are already established and Leonard does little to develop them further. It is the least successful of the three books here, and not much is revealed about Raylan that we didn’t already learn from the first book. Despite all the twists and turns in the plot, there are few surprises, as Raylan spends the entire book working to find out things that Leonard has already revealed to the reader. “Fire in the Hole,” the novella that’s included here as part of the third book of the same name, is better than either of the previous novels. Raylan, who has served the U.S. Marshal Service in Miami for several years, is sent back to Harlan County, Kentucky, where he was born and raised, to take part in a task force aiming to take down Raylan’s former friend Boyd Crowder, a white supremacist who robs banks and blows up churches. The story will be familiar to those who watch Justified, as the first few episodes of season one were quite faithful to Leonard’s original narrative. The Fire in the Hole collection also contains several excellent short stories that have nothing to do with Raylan.

Whether you're a fan of the Justified TV show or not, Leonard’s skillfully crafted prose is a joy to read. He has a talent for elegant understatement and a brilliant knack for writing clever, snappy dialogue. These books have a lighthearted tone overall, with a wry sense of humor, yet the life-and-death confrontations in the book are still intensely suspenseful.

This Kindle file is well constructed, with a convenient table of contents that links to every chapter. There are about a dozen typographical errors in the entire three-book file, mostly in Pronto. From the nature of the typos, it seems optical character recognition was used to construct the file, but the errors are not annoying enough to hinder your enjoyment of the work. If you’re going to buy one of these books, you might as well buy all three, and in terms of convenience and price, this three-book collection is hard to beat.

Books in this collection

Pronto 

Riding the Rap 

Fire in the Hole 

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The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard

A heaping helping of skillfully crafted pulp fiction
Now known as one of America’s best writers of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard got his start writing western tales for pulp fiction magazines in the 1950s. This retrospective collection of his western work consists of thirty short stories and novellas, presented in chronological order.

If thirty stories sounds like a lot, it is. With that many entries, this collection can’t help but get repetitive. How many stagecoach robberies can fit between the covers of one book? Though none of the characters appear in more than one story, the same types continually pop up under new names. The first seven or eight stories lead the reader to believe Leonard may be a one-trick pony. He confines his subject and setting to the Apache country of Arizona. The protagonist is usually a civilian scout hired to guide a party of soldiers, settlers, or criminals through Indian lands. No matter how much the hero warns his employers about the dangers of such a trip, they stubbornly refuse to listen and plod forward regardless, with dire consequences. Though Leonard has a respectful admiration for the Apaches, his portrayal of them is a stereotype nonetheless. He depicts them as stoic killing machines, keenly intelligent and shrewdly calculating, until a drop of alcohol transforms them into murderous lunatics. Though these early stories are strong individually, when read together they inspire a cumulative Apache fatigue.

Thankfully, after the first quarter of the book Leonard broadens his scope and gets more innovative with his plots and characterization. In “The Big Hunt,” a young buffalo hunter and his companion, an old skinner, amass a bountiful collection of hides, but when the fruit of their labor is stolen from them by some bullies, the boy must set out after the thieves in search of restitution. “Saint with a Six-Gun” tells the tale of a newly appointed deputy marshal assigned to guard a dangerous gunslinger the week before his execution, a mission which may be more than the green lawman can handle. In “The Rancher’s Lady,” a widower goes to meet his new bride, whom he has only known through correspondence. Upon arrival, however, a former acquaintance informs him that she used to be employed at a house of ill repute. Despite its lack of shoot-’em-up action, it’s one of the strongest selections in the book. There are several longer, novella-length pieces which give Leonard the opportunity to establish an ensemble cast of characters and explore the interactions between them. One such entry is “Trouble at Rindo’s Station,” in which a disgruntled Indian affairs agent, his crooked ex-boss, and a couple of stagecoach robbing outlaws find themselves trapped by a violent band of Mescaleros. As the collection progresses, Leonard’s writing goes from good to better to excellent. By the end of the book he has perfected the art of dialogue, and one begins to see the emergence of the wry, rapid-fire banter that characterizes his Chili Palmer or Raylan Givens books. The last two stories in the book, “The Tonto Woman” and “‘Hurrah for Captain Early!’” were included in Leonard’s 2001 short story collection Fire in the Hole, and are both excellent examples of his later, mature style.

With very few exceptions, these are all well-crafted, entertaining stories. Even if you’re not particularly a fan of the western genre, if you like Leonard’s writing, you will enjoy this book. When originally written, these stories were not intended to be read together, and redundancy is an unfortunate by-product of their juxtaposition. The solution: don’t read them all at once. To fully appreciate this hearty 30-course chuck wagon dinner, take a break between helpings and savor the flavor.

Stories in this collection

Trail of the Apache 

Apache Medicine 

You Never See Apaches . . . 

Red Hell Hits Canyon Diablo 

The Colonel’s Lady 

Law of the Hunted Ones 

Cavalry Boots 

Under the Friar’s Ledge 

The Rustlers 

Three-Ten to Yuma 

The Big Hunt 

Long Night 

The Boy Who Smiled 

The Hard Way 

The Last Shot 

Blood Money 

Trouble at Rindo’s Station 

Saint with a Six-Gun 

The Captives 

No Man’s Guns 

The Rancher’s Lady 

Jugged 

Moment of Vengeance 

Man with the Iron Arm 

The Longest Day of His Life 

The Nagual 

The Kid 

Only Good Ones 

The Tonto Woman 

“Hurrah for Captain Early!” 

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Fire in the Hole by Elmore Leonard

The best of Raylan, and much more
This collection of short stories by Elmore Leonard was first published in 2002 under the title When the Women Come Out to Dance. Due to the success of the TV series Justified, it has been re-released under the title Fire in the Hole, as it includes the story of that name on which the TV show is based. “Fire in the Hole” is the only one of the nine stories in this collection to feature Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, but it is the one of the longest stories in the book and clearly the best. Raylan was previously featured in Leonard’s novels Pronto and Riding the Rap. The former is much better than the latter, but “Fire in the Hole” tops them both. Raylan, who has served the U.S. Marshal Service in Miami for several years, is sent back to Harlan County, Kentucky, where he was born and raised, to take part in a task force aiming to take down Raylan’s former friend Boyd Crowder, a white supremacist who robs banks and blows up churches. This is an excellent ensemble piece populated with all manner of intriguing redneck, good ol’ boy, and latter-day cowboy lawman characters who exchange generous helpings of Leonard’s delightfully scripted hillbilly repartee. It is a riveting ride, alternately comical and suspenseful. The story will be familiar to those who watch Justified, as the first few episodes of season one were quite faithful to Leonard’s original narrative. Reading Leonard’s incarnation of the story is a joy and a revelation.

Miami-based Marshal Karen Cisco has also had her own TV show and movie (Out of Sight). She’s featured here in the story “Karen Makes Out,” in which she finally finds a man she thinks she can fall in love with, only to discover soon after that he’s a suspect in a series of bank robberies. I’m sure there are other recurring characters from Leonard’s works who appear in this collection, but I don’t know enough about his career to tell you which ones. He shows an incredibly wide range in these stories, covering the crime and western genres and beyond. Besides “Fire in the Hole,” the collection features another novella-length work, “Tenkiller.” When his fiancee dies, a former bull rider turned Hollywood stunt man makes a trip to his hometown of Okmulgee, Oklahoma, to check on his family’s pecan farm. Upon arrival he finds his house occupied by a family of criminal lowlife tenants who are up to no good and don’t want to leave. The book features two very strong stories in the western category. “Hurrah for Capt. Early” stars a black Spanish-American War veteran who receives a less than warm welcome from some small town racist cowhands. In “The Tonto Woman,” horse thief Ruben Vega stumbles upon a beautiful white woman living alone in the desert. When he discovers that she has Indian tattoos upon her face, he becomes greatly intrigued by her and decides to look into her mysterious past.

There are a couple of weaker entries. “Hanging Out at the Buena Vista,” chronicling the first date of two octogenarians in a retirement home, is a little too cutesy for its own good. “Sparks,” about an arson investigation, is not particularly exciting. These shorter pieces do little to drag down the collection as a whole, however, and the rest of the stories are captivatingly entertaining. Leonard really has a knack for creating fascinating, likeable characters, and his talent for penning snappy dialogue is unparalleled among contemporary crime writers. Despite the fact that my favorite Stetson-wearing U.S. Marshal is only featured in one story, I enjoyed this book more than either of the two prior volumes in the Raylan Givens series.

Stories in this collection:

Sparks

Hanging Out at the Buena Vista

Chickasaw Charlie Hoke

When the Women Come Out to Dance

Fire in the Hole

Karen Makes Out

Hurrah for Capt. Early

The Tonto Woman

Tenkiller

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