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A Man Could Get Killed

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The last great novel by the King of the Western!

242 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

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About the author

Luke Short

128 books36 followers
Luke Short (real name Frederick Dilley Glidden) was a popular Western writer.

Born in Kewanee, Illinois Glidden attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for two and a half years and then transferred to the University of Missouri at Columbia to study journalism.

Following graduation in 1930 he worked for a number of newspapers before becoming a trapper in Canada then later moved to New Mexico to be an archeologist's assistant.

After reading Western pulp magazines and trying to escape unemployment he started writing Western fiction. He sold his first short story and novel in 1935 under the pen name of Luke Short (which was also the name of a famous gunslinger in the Old West, though it's unclear if he was aware of that when he assumed the pen name.)

After publishing over a dozen novels in the 1930s, he started writing for films in the 40s. In 1948 alone four Luke Short novels appeared as movies. Some of his memorable film credits includes Ramrod (1947) and Blood on the Moon (1948). He continued to write novels, despite increasing trouble with his eyes, until his death in 1975. His ashes are buried in Aspen, Colorado, his home at the time of his death.




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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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131 reviews2 followers
June 27, 2019
I loved this last Luke Short novel. Clearly he hadn’t lost anything at the end of his career. This is a different sort of western, almost a modern detective story in the feel of it. With the exception of the setting it would work just as well in the twentieth or twenty-first century. Sam Kennery is a deputy US Marshall loaned out to a department to work undercover. A Texas cattleman and an Indian agent have been shorting the government’s beef tallies and splitting the profits. When they’re informed on they arrange to have the informant killed. It’s up to Sam to discover the killers and make the case stick.

The book has an engaging plot, enough twists and turns to keep it interesting, of course a good love story, and some unexpected bad men. Luke Short books are always pretty good. A little grittier than Louis L’Amour but not to the point where the language or body count is wearing on you the whole time like some modern western writers. That’s not the kind of read I’m looking for. This is the good old fashioned hero beats the bad guys and rescues the girl kind of story I love to read over and over.
2 reviews
April 9, 2023
A real smash of a story

I have read lots of luke short books this is another smash hit of a story put together with a blend of adventure and cunning , plus Sam gets his woman as well
3,198 reviews26 followers
October 6, 2018
A Luke Short Western/A Cattleman and Indian Agent Fraud the U.S. Government

LS has penned a western about a gentleman and an Indian Agent who for years have been cheating the Indians and the U.S. Government. After a witness is Murdered a U.S. Marshal is sent in undercover to find or discover new evidence against the two men. This is an excellent read for the genre.....DEHS
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews