Friday, October 08, 2021

The Lawless Border -- Allan Vaughan Elston


Having read and enjoyed several of Elston's short stories lately, I decided 
to try one of his novels. This is the only one I had on my shelves. It's one of his later efforts, from 1966, but still has a very pulpish feel to it. It's the old vengeance plot -- cowboy from Wyoming comes to southern Arizona in 1880 to track down the varmints who murdered his brother -- but Elston does a good job with it, mixing in a lot of the history of the area and having his fictional characters interact believably with the Earps, Doc Holliday, etc., although for some reason he keeps the actual names for some historical characters and changes others (the Clantons become the Claytons, for example). The plot takes several twists to keep it interesting. Overall, THE LAWLESS BORDER is entertaining enough that I'll look for other books by Elston.

1 comment:

John B said...

That's an author (one of many) I'm not familiar with. I'll keep an eye out for him , thanks for the review.