Wherein our hero Durfee reviews Gunsights by Elmore Leonard. 296 #ElmoreLeonard #Gunsights #WesternNovel check out more of my Western novel reviews • LONESOME DOVE / Larry ...
I HIGHLY recommend James Carlos Blake. He writes westerns and crime novels. Outstanding in every way. I also love Elmer Kelton, a very Texas centric western writer. Wonderful.
Gunsights was the last western Dutch wrote before jumping into crime full time. Great book. You can see the beginning of his cut to the bone style going all the way back to The Bounty Hunters. Dutch started moving into crime, probably with the historical crime novel The Moonshine War. Great book, not so great movie. The Big Bounce was probably his first contemporary crime novel, and twice poorly adapted to screen. I started reading Elmore in the mid 80s, starting with Glitz, then La Brava, Cat Chaser, 52 Pickup, Gold Coast, etc. I got hooked on Dutch when I was about twelve, a very young age to start reading crime fiction. Then I got into John D. MacDonald, Ross Thomas, Donald Westlake, Lawrence Block, James Lee Burke, Josep Wambaugh, James Ellroy, etc. Love the genre.
What Elmore Leonard western/novels would you consider literary perfection? Just getting into him, I have this book and forty lashes less one, haven’t read either yet.
There’s a funny western show on Hulu called Quickdraw and the town newspaperman has this line about why he writes fake news lol “Someone’s gotta tell the people what to think.” 👀
