A review by rosseroo
Last Stand at Saber River by Elmore Leonard

2.0

Lately I've been making my way through some of Leonard's early westerns, of which this is a minor one. It's set at the tail end of the Civil War, out in Arizona somewhere. Paul Cable is a veteran of the Confederate Army who is returning with his family after several years away, only to find his homestead has been taken over by pro-Union thugs who control the area. The father-figure who ran the local general store passed away while Caleb was gone, leaving a hard-bitten new man in his place whose loyalties aren't clear. What follows is a pretty standard Western showdown revolving around property rights and what it means to be a man and stand up for yourself, with the added twist of Civil War allegiances coming into play. Probably the book's greatest weakness is Caleb, who is a very stock character. It's never explained what compelled him to leave his family to join the Confederate Army, and for a story with him so much as the center, that's a gaping hole. There are some decent scenes and bits of dialogue, but on the whole, this felt very much like a first draft.