Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Last Ride to Los Lobos


“The first streaks of dawn were curdling the eastern sky.”

That is a great line from William Chamberlain’s 1964 novel. There are many such lines, but this tale is somewhat of a curiosity. It reads as if two authors were at work here, one skilled, and one, well, not so much.

There are three loooong chapters of such superficial one-dimensional characterization I find it hard to believe it was written by the same person.

As on the plus side of the ledger, the vast bulk deals with a grimly detailed uncomfortable desert crossing and the believable deterioration of men under pressure.

If this was all this story was it’d be an easy A for any reader, but those out-of-place three chapters mark this one as rough territory.

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