Tous les livres de Luke Short
Webb Cousins was headed for a short trial and a long stretch in jail. A deputy had him cuffed, covered, and brought back alive. But when the prisoner and his captor ride into Wagon Mound, death rides in with them. In a flash of rifle fire, Cousins finds himself shackled to a dead man and swept up in a desperate struggle. A murderous range war - a bloody, bitter feud - threatens to destroy everything and everyone in its path. To ride away a free man will take more than breaking his chains. Ending a vicious cycle of vengeance and cruelty means waging a one-man war against two bitter enemies - both of whom want him dead. It will take cunning, a double shot of courage, and a long, dark ride into hell.
It had been too easy for Frank Chess to work for Rhino Hulst...running his crooked errands; losing his crooked money in the nearest poker game; drinking it up in the nearest saloon; giving it to the nearest girl in a spangled dress. But Frank never understood the cost of working for such a man. "Sure I killed him," Rhino said pleasantly. "And I pinned it on you. I'm the only man can clear you, and I need you. You'll have to stick with me--or hang!"
They called Frank a drifter--a fiddlefoot--and not even Rhino suspected that when he stumbled across something he cared about, the mild-mannered fiddlefoot would turn into a tornado of vengeance.
The Fasken brothers strode into town with a grim announcement: they were going to kill a man before they left--the man who had brought disgrace upon their sister. The man they thought they wanted was Owen Daybright. And Owen was indeed involved with their sister. But he was innocent of any wrong-doing--he just wanted to help her. He also knew the name of the guilty man, but even a confrontation with Fasken guns won't get it out of him. Here is an explosive, fast-moving Western, in which a man's fierce loyalty to a coward makes him a target for killers' guns.
Will Ballard, a range foreman, puts up a bitter fight to save the range he loves and discover the girl he loves. Will Ballard, tough, unscrupulous, and unbending in his loyalty to his cause, is a new kind of Western hero.
When a Texas gunman finds out his latest job is part of one big double cross, he swaps sides to save a family in peril
Mettant face à face deux clans qui se disputent des pâturages, Femme de feu semble de prime abord un western des plus classiques. Mais l’héroïne est d’une modernité inattendue : au sein d’une société patriarcale, elle s’efforce d’obtenir son indépendance matérielle et amoureuse. De fait, Connie est une vamp manipulatrice et passionnée. Elle cherche par tous les moyens à se libérer des intentions de son père mais chacun de ses actes révèle également son côté tragique, désespéré.
Le sens extraordinaire qu’a Luke Short de la psychologie de ses personnages, le climat sombre et réaliste qu’il impose et son style rapide, nerveux, rendent ce roman original et captivant.
En 1947, André De Toth l’a porté à l’écran de manière magistrale, avec de nombreux extérieurs. Ce western, réédité en DVD (2012), le premier du genre avec des personnages de femmes aussi importants, est devenu un classique.
(Source : Actes Sud)
