Formulaic and mundane; but I guess some people like that

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	• Shadow of a Star Elmer Kelton ACE Charter, 1986 average customer review:based on 2 reviews
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Thoughtful rites of passage Western

Elmer Kelton is -at the time i write this review-a 7 times winner of the Spur award for Western writing and won the 2000 poll held by the Western writers of America as the best Westrn writer of them all .I endorse their support for Mr Kelton with one nit picking exception -for me he does not write formulary Westerns thesed days but rather authors novels set in the West
The title under consideration is a prentice early work but shows the mature master in waiting
The protagonist is a young and eager Deputy Sheriff ,Jim-Bob Meehan ;he is still wet behind the ears but willing to learn .His inexperience results in what should have been a simple arest going badly wrong and the culprit is killed .Kelton lifts this scene above the routine by showing us the deep grief of the victim's intellctually challenged wife ,this making the incident resonate with more emotion than most other genre writers would have injected into the scene .

Jim -Bob is entrusted with the task of delivering horses to a ranch for breaking where he encounters a group of men who are -unknown to him ,outlaws.After parting company with Jim -Bob one of the gang -its only truly bad lot ,the vicious Buster ,kills Jim -Bob's best friend .With the sheriff out of action it is Jim-Bob who must tack down Buster and not only bring him back to town but prevent his lynching by the vengeful townsfolk
Along the way he learns some lessons in life and love including how to distinguish between shallow and beautiful women whose main quality is vanity ,and those less pleasing to the eye whose love is an altogether more substantial thing ;he learns that sometimes outlaws are that way through blind fate rather than being inherently evil .

There is enough vivid and well realised action to satisfy genre lovers and the underpinning theme of the need to grow up rapidly and assume moral authority adds a tart subtext to a satisfying book

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Formulaic and mundane; but I guess some people like that

I personally feel like giving Shadow of a Star a two-star rating because I felt it was cliched and formulaic; I gave it a four star rating out of fairness, because, well, I guess it was pretty naive of me to expect complexities or originality from one of these old-fashioned pulp westerns, wasn't it?

A good-to-the-bone good guy and an unequivocally-bad bad guy. A wise and expendable (for tension's sake) father figure. That one sympathetic quasi-villain. Our hero's depth and inner struggle being a simple old tale of conquering his fear and doing what's right. You know the story, and if you want to read it again, buy away. But if you're looking for something a little more complex a la a nice Anthony Mann movie, you oughta know better, huh?

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Deputy Sheriff Jim-Bob McClain isn't sure he's ready to follow in his father's footsteps as the law in Coolridge County. In fact, he has a hard enough time keeping the peace between the drunks in the local saloon. But with tough Sheriff Mont Naylor to back him up he figures he can handle whatever comes his way.

Jim-Bob's first real assignment is no piece of cake. He must escort a ruthless outlaw into the hands of justice. All seems well with the lawless killer firmly in Jim-Bob's custody. But nothing prepares him for an angry mob, determined to take the law into their own hands and provide their own brand justice: a hangman's noose.

Shadow of a Star is a gripping tale by Elmer Kelton, voted one of the best Western Writers of all time by Westerns Writers of America, Inc.

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