Book review: The Mountain Valley War by Louis L’Amour

The Mountain Valley War is one of Louis L’Amour’s best.

Louis  L’Amour wrote dozens of stories with non-reoccurring characters.  The hero would appear in one book never to be seen again.  On the other side was almost two dozen novels about the Sackett family.  The Sackett books spanned several generations.  In between these Louis L’Amour had a few characters that popped up in various novels and short stories.  Kilkenny was one such.  There were three novels and three short stories about Kilkenny.

For some reason Kilkenny is one of my favorite Louis L’Amour characters.  He had many of the traditional traits: fast with a gun, a good fist fighter, smart, stood up for justice and for most of the stories he rode off into the sunset, alone.

“The Mountain Valley War” is the last Kilkenny novel.  Once again our hero is minding his own business.  He is up in the mountains of Idaho building up a small ranch.  Then a cattle baron starts pushing his weight around.  He wants more land, and he kills for it.  Kilkenny gets involved and rallies to the side of the small settlers.  In addition to all that, trouble has followed him from the story of “The Rider of Lost Creek.”  We have lots of gun battles and some fist fights.  The action just moves from page to page. 

Personally I recommend you start with “Kilkenny” and “The Rider of Lost Creek” before reading “The Mountain Valley War.”  But if you like Louis L'Amour or westerns in general you can jump straight to "The Mountain Valley War."