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Law Man
For eleven years he had been sheriff of this town, yet he wasn't sure he had the qualities it took to do a job of this size. The farmers did not trust him; the ranchers feared him because he stood in their way. Only one thing was certain: if he died tonight, no one else was capable of doing what must be done.In a novel of unusual power, Lee Leighton tells the story of a town torn by seething hatred, and of a sheriff who has staked his life to protect a killer sentenced to hang in the morning.
- GenresWesterns
250 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1953
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 23, 2020
Along with some of the other reading challenges I've embarked on (every Hugo Award winner, Nebula Award Winner, definitive presidential biographies, every Stephen King, Nick Hornby, John Steinbeck, Buffy book, etc.) I decided to try to read all of the Spur Award winners as well. I really dig Western movies but haven't read many books in the genre aside from Shane and a few others. Hopefully the Spur Awards people did a good job of picking out some of the best books in the genre.
Law Man by Lee Leighton (real name Wayne Overholser) is a High Noon style story about the impending violence that will happen in the next 24 Hours and the man tasked with upholding the law and keeping the people safe. Instead of a specific threat arriving at noon, here the sheriff is tasked with hanging a murderer at 9am and there are several things likely to happen in the 24 hours leading up to it. Ed Lake is the murderer, hired by the local ranchers to kill the farmers that are trying to (legally) farm on their side of the river. The ranchers that hired him (led by George Ballard) believe if he hangs the farmers will continue to try to encroach on their side of the river, so they want to bust him out.
At the same time the local farmers are worried that if he doesn't hang, the ranchers will feel emboldened to continue to kill any farmers that go north of the river. As a result, there's a mob of people that want to storm the jail and hang Lake early to make sure it happens. Finally, Ed has a girlfriend on the outside who will do anything she can to save him, even sneaking a gun to him inside his jail cell. To complicate matters, the leader of the ranchers and head bad guy is engaged to the sheriff's daughter, so anything our protagonist does will be viewed as either showing favoritism to his new son in law by the farmers or as trying to thwart a marriage by his daughter.
There was a lot going on in under 200 pages in terms of setting the stage. I was expecting a big action packed climax which the book sidesteps. Although the title of the book is Law Man, the two key moments in the book of avoiding disaster rely on secondary characters (a local janitor turned deputy, a farmer's wife). Our protagonist decides against ever asking for help and says it's his job to be sheriff, but by no means does he deserve all of the credit for how the situation resolves in the book. When the climactic moment finally does happen, it's not detailed for the reader except in a hasty after the fact fashion that left me wondering exactly what happened to the bad guy.
This was one of those books where I was feeling like a 5/5 when it was over (it's a fun story to read that moves fast and has an interesting story) but the more I thought about it the easier it was to nitpick. I could see why when they remade this as a movie (Clint Eastwood's first small part, A Star in the Dust, they changed the ending for a more direct confrontation which the book could have benefited from. You could sell me on anything from a 3 to a 5 out of 5, so I'll go split the difference and go with a 4.
Law Man by Lee Leighton (real name Wayne Overholser) is a High Noon style story about the impending violence that will happen in the next 24 Hours and the man tasked with upholding the law and keeping the people safe. Instead of a specific threat arriving at noon, here the sheriff is tasked with hanging a murderer at 9am and there are several things likely to happen in the 24 hours leading up to it. Ed Lake is the murderer, hired by the local ranchers to kill the farmers that are trying to (legally) farm on their side of the river. The ranchers that hired him (led by George Ballard) believe if he hangs the farmers will continue to try to encroach on their side of the river, so they want to bust him out.
At the same time the local farmers are worried that if he doesn't hang, the ranchers will feel emboldened to continue to kill any farmers that go north of the river. As a result, there's a mob of people that want to storm the jail and hang Lake early to make sure it happens. Finally, Ed has a girlfriend on the outside who will do anything she can to save him, even sneaking a gun to him inside his jail cell. To complicate matters, the leader of the ranchers and head bad guy is engaged to the sheriff's daughter, so anything our protagonist does will be viewed as either showing favoritism to his new son in law by the farmers or as trying to thwart a marriage by his daughter.
There was a lot going on in under 200 pages in terms of setting the stage. I was expecting a big action packed climax which the book sidesteps. Although the title of the book is Law Man, the two key moments in the book of avoiding disaster rely on secondary characters (a local janitor turned deputy, a farmer's wife). Our protagonist decides against ever asking for help and says it's his job to be sheriff, but by no means does he deserve all of the credit for how the situation resolves in the book. When the climactic moment finally does happen, it's not detailed for the reader except in a hasty after the fact fashion that left me wondering exactly what happened to the bad guy.
This was one of those books where I was feeling like a 5/5 when it was over (it's a fun story to read that moves fast and has an interesting story) but the more I thought about it the easier it was to nitpick. I could see why when they remade this as a movie (Clint Eastwood's first small part, A Star in the Dust, they changed the ending for a more direct confrontation which the book could have benefited from. You could sell me on anything from a 3 to a 5 out of 5, so I'll go split the difference and go with a 4.
August 2, 2025
The first chapter sets up the situation in Grant County this morning. The hired gunman Ed Lake is scheduled to hang tomorrow. This tale takes place over the next 24 hours.
Our protagonist Sheriff Bill Worden has a tenuously nervous position as the lone voice of reason keeping a lid on a possible range war between cattle ranchers north of Coffin Creek and the growing population of farmers south of it. The local big shot, a 32-year-old rancher and banker named George Ballard, is rumored to be responsible for hiring this jailed gunman but there is no proof and Lake is keeping his mouth shut for now.
"Law Man" (1953) has an interesting array of players in this western drama, but the most interesting ones are the females. The Sheriff has his worries, of course, and is committed to carrying out his duties without help as our everyman-style law man, but his wife Ada and his daughter Ellen have different worries, along with Lake's girlfriend Jeannie, and a hot-tempered rancher's wife Nan.
Most readers are familiar with the narrative concept of a male protagonist's internal duty for responsibility and righting wrongs, especially in western fare (think "High Noon"), but Leighton here makes subtle shift of that common theme to these women's innate duties when it comes to loyalty and forgiveness for her chosen partner. The most tragic might be the scandalous Jeannie; her willingness to throw away all her last scraps of dignity, reputation, possessions, and even soul when she casts her lot with the knowingly-murderous Ed Lake, and all because he's the only man in town who has ever spoken to her nicely. The most virtuous might be Ada; the loyal wife to the Sheriff in the center of all this conflict. And then the other two Ellen and Nan lie somewhere hopelessly in between. All four carry a tremendous naivete and stubborn blinders when it comes to passing judgement on the men in their lives, but all four are also resolute and unshakable in their love for these guys to impressive, shocking, and tragic ends.
And then Worden's, Ballard's, Nan's and Lane's paths in the third act are smart and move quickly, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
As I sat down to write this review I saw on Goodreads that Lee Leighton, the author, is actually Wayne Overholser using Leighton as a pseudonym. I should have known that because the prose, pacing, and characters are outstanding. "Law Man" won the Spur Award for best novel in 1953. Overholser would win that award again the next year with "The Violent Land" which I read and loved and had as my #6 western of all time when I last did my book rankings. Overholser/Leighton is a great storyteller.
Verdict: An excellent western tale with a riveting pace, kind of a subtle twist on a mash-up between "3:10 to Yuma" and "High Noon" with a number of memorable characters.
Jeff's Rating: 5 / 5 (Excellent)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG-13
Our protagonist Sheriff Bill Worden has a tenuously nervous position as the lone voice of reason keeping a lid on a possible range war between cattle ranchers north of Coffin Creek and the growing population of farmers south of it. The local big shot, a 32-year-old rancher and banker named George Ballard, is rumored to be responsible for hiring this jailed gunman but there is no proof and Lake is keeping his mouth shut for now.
"Law Man" (1953) has an interesting array of players in this western drama, but the most interesting ones are the females. The Sheriff has his worries, of course, and is committed to carrying out his duties without help as our everyman-style law man, but his wife Ada and his daughter Ellen have different worries, along with Lake's girlfriend Jeannie, and a hot-tempered rancher's wife Nan.
Most readers are familiar with the narrative concept of a male protagonist's internal duty for responsibility and righting wrongs, especially in western fare (think "High Noon"), but Leighton here makes subtle shift of that common theme to these women's innate duties when it comes to loyalty and forgiveness for her chosen partner. The most tragic might be the scandalous Jeannie; her willingness to throw away all her last scraps of dignity, reputation, possessions, and even soul when she casts her lot with the knowingly-murderous Ed Lake, and all because he's the only man in town who has ever spoken to her nicely. The most virtuous might be Ada; the loyal wife to the Sheriff in the center of all this conflict. And then the other two Ellen and Nan lie somewhere hopelessly in between. All four carry a tremendous naivete and stubborn blinders when it comes to passing judgement on the men in their lives, but all four are also resolute and unshakable in their love for these guys to impressive, shocking, and tragic ends.
And then Worden's, Ballard's, Nan's and Lane's paths in the third act are smart and move quickly, and I couldn't wait to see what happened next.
As I sat down to write this review I saw on Goodreads that Lee Leighton, the author, is actually Wayne Overholser using Leighton as a pseudonym. I should have known that because the prose, pacing, and characters are outstanding. "Law Man" won the Spur Award for best novel in 1953. Overholser would win that award again the next year with "The Violent Land" which I read and loved and had as my #6 western of all time when I last did my book rankings. Overholser/Leighton is a great storyteller.
Verdict: An excellent western tale with a riveting pace, kind of a subtle twist on a mash-up between "3:10 to Yuma" and "High Noon" with a number of memorable characters.
Jeff's Rating: 5 / 5 (Excellent)
movie rating if made into a movie: PG-13
October 20, 2018
This is an excellent Western first published in 1953. It follows a sheriff through one day, dealing with different factions in town who either don't trust him or openly oppose him as he guards a prisoner scheduled to be hanged for murder. It's a very tense story filled with strong characterizations.
January 18, 2026
Though the author on the jacket says Lee Leighton, the real name of the author is Wayne D. Overholser. Its a well written book that takes place over a short period of days similar to the movie “High Noon”.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews