Conagher by Louis L'Amour

1969/133 pgs

About the Book: Evie Teale has just moved out west with her husband and two children. But the long journey takes it toll on the family and soon Evie finds herself without a husband and a small income. It's only with the help of the drifter Conagher that the Teale's will survive.

Sarah Teenlibrarian Says: I read this for my adult lit class and I can now say that westerns are no my genre of choice! The story started out OK, but I soon found it a bit boring.

The book starts out with the story of the Teale family. Evie and her children are trying to make it in the west and they happen to be settled near the stagecoach which brings passengers here and there with a small income. This part of the story I found interesting enough, but after a few chapters the story changes from Evie to Conagher.

Conagher is a drifter and somewhat of a fighter. He spends a lot of the book being intimidating and threatening the bad guys. Conagher takes a job at a cattle ranch and he starts to find notes in the tumbleweeds written by a lonely woman. The author gives so many hints about how lonely Evie is and how lonely Conn is, I guess he felt there's no need to develop anything between them. We get several chapters of Conn and it's like we've forgotten about Evie and the kids altogether until she randomly shows up in Conn's drifter path again.

The story tries to alternate between Evie and Conagher, but it never pulls it off successfully. It's like we had two different stories going on that never really met. The stories try to come together, but it's so sudden it feels a bit forced.

The end is a bit of a rush and I didn't think there was really any character development at all. It's a simple story with a few fights between the good and bad guys with the good guy winning and getting the girl. For fans of westerns it might be good, but it wasn't for me.