I tried. I really did.A friend recommended this work - particularly the Kip Morgan stories inside - when the likes of Philip Marlowe came up. I'd never read any L'Amour before picking it up, and now that I have: He's no Raymond Chandler. Not even close.The first story (the novella that lends the collection its title) is a paint-by-numbers mystery starring a hackneyed Continental Op rip-off and some other paper cutouts in a desert-themed locked-room mystery with a ludicrous solution.This is followed by the brief "Unguarded Moment," which is decent. Not a detective story, and not anything to write home about, but it was OK.Then comes the first tale of Kip Morgan, ex-prizefighter. Instead of improving, L'Amour suddenly begins indulging in even more robotic melodrama than before.The hero explains his plan to the (beautiful and available) client:"He will know somebody knows Willard is alive. Don't you see? That was his biggest protection, the fact that everybody believed Henry Willard to be dead. He'll be frightened; he will also be curious. Who can it be? What do they know? Are the police closing in? Or is this blackmail?"Helen was excited. "It’s crazy! Absolutely crazy! But I believe it will work!""He won’t dare stay away. He will be shocked to the roots of his being. His own anxiety will be our best help."Then:"Are you afraid?"Kip shrugged. "Not yet, but I will be. Scared as a man can be, but that won't stop me.""And that goes for me, too!" she said.That's as far as I could get.
I still haven't read any of his novels, or any of his cowboy stories for that matter. Several years ago, I read his short story collection called Yondering. But I don't remember much about it. Anyway, this collection is about cops and private detectives. The shorter ones are a bit too simplistic. But the longer ones - The Street of Lost Corpses, I Hate to Tell His Widow, and the title piece - are better. More plot development; less telegraphed I guess. The collection was published in 1983, but the individual stories had been written earlier, some even a few decades earlier. An amusing result is how marijuana use is addressed in a couple of the stories.
