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I think the only westerns I've ever read have been weird genre exploders like The Sister Brothers or Haint's Stay, but I found this more traditional western pretty boring. We see white hat Luther Haskell go undercover as a cattle agent to determine the murderers of three rangers in the Christopher Basin. Meanwhile, we've got some side stories, one about his boss investigating corruption at the Yuma prison complex, and a sideline about Luther's girlfriend and "dove" Tillie coming to terms with her need to marry Luther to be happy.

None of the stories were all that interesting, sadly-- we know the whodunit before Luther is on the case, and the motives aren't interesting and the crime isn't particularly lurid enough to make me gnash my teeth to get justice. The prison plotline is mostly diversion, to allow the Major to get into unrelated trouble and save the day. The prison plotline as a whole feels like a red herring, given how quickly its resolved. The stuff with Tillie is at least funny, but her emotional reactions feel like something from a 50s TV show.

There are weird elements here of trying to be up-to-date, so we get some time with characters of color, some Mexicans, Indians, and African-Americans. But for me, those presentations wandered very close to being stereotypical in the same way Tillie's feelings felt cliched and old fashioned. This is probably most certain of the one African-American character who shows Luther around, but really, it's kind of icky throughout.

I get it that Richards is well-loved and well-published. I just think that means this isn't one of his better books.