The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 6: The Crime Stories

The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour #6

by Louis L'Amour

One of America's most beloved storytellers, Louis L'Amour's vibrant tales of adventure bring the American West to life. Now, in this sixth volume of collected short stories, L'Amour takes us beyond the frontier with thirty-three gripping stories of crime, sports, and the murky world where the two often meet. From suspenseful whodunits to rueful tales of fortunes gained and lost, this remarkable collection will enthrall and entertain L'Amour fans old and new.

Traversing a vivid landscape, from sunblasted hills and canyons to the nighttime streets of America's greatest cities, some of Louis L'Amour's most compelling fiction was set in his own time--whether in the naked electric glare of boxing rings where men go head-to-head with their dreams and demons in an underworld rife with corruption, or along freight docks where laborers toil to earn just enough to get by, or in the penthouses of the rich and arrogant who calculate the odds of how to get even more. Here are tales of innocents caught in the schemes of criminals, detectives hunting down truths that hide more lies, gamblers and beauties, wiseguys and cops. Here is a world populated by the kinds of people who risk their lives to right a wrong, make a buck, or save a friend.

A war veteran makes a journey to visit the man who saved his life in Korea. Instead he uncovers a killing and finds his own heroic cause.... Confronted with an easy chance to steal, an honest man gives in to temptation--and finds himself ensnared in a web of blackmail and violence.... An elderly Hawaiian seafarer is found dead with a hand-carved figure beside his body. Unraveling his murder will mean solving the mystery of a shipwreck--and of the forces that drive some to take fatal chances and others to kill.

Brimming with thought-provoking characters and situations--from a man who awakens from unconsciousness to find a fortune in a burning house to a man who meets a killer who is supposed to be dead in a seedy diner--these thrilling, atmospheric stories course with authenticity and bear the mark of a timeless master.

Genres: Short Stories, Westerns, Fiction, Crime, Mystery, Suspense

576 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was called The Crime Stories but this was a mishmash of all types of stories, some super short some novella length but nearly all of the great.

[John Bruni · Rating 5 out of 5]

So a weird thing happened while reading this book. The last one I read was by Mickey Spillane, and it's a little surprising how much he has in common with L'Amour. They both wrote immensely easy books to read with updated language, which was rare at the time. Their protagonists tend to be more or less the same. And they write about violence really well.

I'm always glad to read L'Amour's crime stories. He's mostly known for westerns, so it's a great deal of fun reading about murders and scams, etc. I don't recommend reading the boxing stories back to back because they can be very similar to each other, but I have to give L'Amour credit for the many different ways he writes boxing matches. The only puzzling thing about this book is that it ends with two sports stories. I mean, I guess you gotta put them somewhere if you're doing the collected short stories of his work. In one of them a criminal tries to throw a football game, so I guess that qualifies, but the other is a straight sports story. It's even weirder because I don't really care about sports fiction that isn't called Major League, but I actually enjoyed these two stories.

It's good to see a few recurring characters, but my favorite is Kip (named after Rudyard Kipling, you know, as in Gunga Din) because he starts out in the boxing stories and before you know it he's in the crime stories working as a private eye.

Oh yeah, another thing L'Amour has in common with Spillane. Both write protagonists that are shameless womanizers to the point of maybe a little more than a whiff of sexism. It's made pretty clear in the stories that these guys all made time with their various damsels in distress.

I really don't know why more people don't know about these stories. They should, really.

[Rosemary Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short stories list
Unguarded Moment
Police Band
Time of Terror
The Gravel Pit
Sand Trap
Under the Hanging Wall
Too Tough to Kill
Anything for a Pal
Fighter's Fiasco
Sideshow Champion
Fighters Should Be Hungry
The Money Punch
Making It the Hard Way
Fighters Don't Dive
Gloves for a Tiger
The Ghost Fighter
Dream Fighter
Corpse on the Carpet
With Death in His Corner
Dead Man's Trail
The Street of Corpses
Stay Out of My Nightmare
The Hills of Homicide
I Hate to Tell His Widow
Collect from a Corpse
The Unexpected Corpse
The Sucker Switch
A Friend of a Hero
The Vanished Blonde
Backfield Battering Ram
Moran of the Tigers

[Oleta Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some really interesting stories and it has some that I just couldn't get through. I am not a fan of fights or football so those stories didn't hold my interest. I did enjoy the other crime stories. There is something about a mystery that makes me have to find out what happened. For those of you that like sports stories I am sure you will find something to like in this book. Louis L'Amour is a wonderful writer and he never fails in delivering a good story for his fans.

[Bentley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection presents many of Louis L'Amour's short stories about crime. Several concern boxers and boxing, which are realistic primarily because the author had actually boxed earlier in his varied career.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional writing. Louis L’Amour is a master at suspenseful short stories and my only disappointment is not discovering his work earlier.

If you are a fan of the Ellery Queen Magazine, which features short stories, then you will be knocked out by this collection.

[Jacqui H. Travis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the mystery/private detective stories, but not the boxing or sports. Good mystery stories in 1950's style private detective genre.
All in all, I much better prefer Louis L'Amour western short stories.

[Matthew Shelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting early work

It's interesting reading Louis L'Amour's Early work before he really hit his stride and fame with his westerns. A lot of early 20th century terms and dialogue that has gone out of style, but his Westerns never will.

[Edward Bellis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just not a good book of stories. I was hoping for more of a Hondo type read or Sackett brothers. The book felt contrived and thrown together. I wasted my time.

[Jimmy Peeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 stars, overall a good collection.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great BIG book of short stories, 33 to be exact, all revolving around one subject, crime, if you hadn’t guessed from the title.
The book begins with various different stories on crime, missing people, dead bodies, dingy bars and dodgy deals. The characters change from story to story and this makes each story thrilling and exciting.
After the seventh story the books short stories are all based around boxing for at least the next 12 stories. It can get a bit exhausting reading about boxing fight after boxing fight, crooked heavy weight champions and dodgy bet fixing, Louis L’amour doesn’t show much imagination in these stories as they all feel far to similar from each one to the next.
The last 6 stories are different characters but each story has a recurring theme in it. They all have a big showdown fight when they find the perpetrator, It can get a bit repetitive but its a great, energetic, way to end each story and ties in nicely with the previous theme.
Louis L’amour is a great writer and his stories are pretty fast paced page turners but I think in this collection of stories there just a few too many. I wanted each story to have a different angle and subject.
Its a book for real lovers of crime and, in particular, boxing. As a reader that has not much interest in either of these things, I found, towards the end of the book, it hard to concentrate . I would suggest reading this volume of collected short stories between reading other novels, just keep coming back to it, it’s quite a task to read all in one go.

[Chuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many of this countries more prolific writers came from a generation of "pulp" fiction writers of the 40'a and 50's. I believe that this is the case with L'Amour and his limited number of mystery writings. The short stories included in this collection were clever and enjoyable. My only issue was that they spent considerable time describing blow by blow physical confrontations which I found tedious in todays setting. It was fun to see a different side of L'Amour without a white hat, a lasso and a shootout.

[John Marr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've always found Louis L'Amour's popularity bewildering. Thinking it due to my horsehit allergy, I gave this collection of his crime/sports stories a whirl. I remain bewildered; nothing but utterly undistnguished pulp fodder here. Perhaps America is insane.

[Tom Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great story teller. The only thing I didn't like was all the boxing stories in a row against the mob. Still good though, I really like the Private Eye Kip. I still recommend this as Louis L'Amour really new how to write a story.

[John Gorman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good private detective-type crime stories. Nothing earth-shattering, but solidly entertaining.