LOUIS L'AMOUR'S SHALAKO & CATLOW - A Book Report

I have always heard good things about Louis L’amour stories of the Wild West. I received the book SHALAKO CATLOW as a gift and felt I owed it to myself to read the book so I would know what reading pleasure I missed in the past.

I read the book from the beginning to end and somehow missed what is so good about Louis L’amour.

The book SHALAKO CATLOW is two books in one. One book is named SHALAKO and other book is named CATLOW. They are each 198 pages long.

Each book’s plot was about wild savage Indians chasing wholesome white people, without much water, across deserts of the southwest. It sounds racist doesn’t it?

Well, not all the white men were wholesome. There were bad men mixed in. But even the bad white men had some good about them, they just had a lot on their minds, not like those killer Indians.

And of course, every book that has appeal has a possible romance brewing. Both books had women with appeal and brains too! But Louis L’amour didn’t get too mushy in the romance department. L’amour is a French name isn’t it? Strange.

The poor Indians took a beating in both books. In SHALAKO the Apaches were killers and cunning. They worked together like a pack of wild dogs. But they got whipped in their own back yard. In CATLOW it was the Seris Indians. I didn’t know until I read this book that the Seris Indians are believed to be descended from white Norwegians or some other country nearer to the north pole. I googled SERIS INDIANS and found they are mostly in Mexico, which is roughly the area the book took place.

Also the deli possibilities of mule meat, coyote hide, and the nutrition value of desert mice were discussed.

So, even in “SHOOT’EM UP TONY” books you can learn things.

Also, if I had better retention I would have learned quite a bit about the deserts of the southwest and their characteristics and resident wildlife and could carry on a conversation of it all without bull shitting.