This one is not a western, so perhaps not indicative of L'Amour's style. It's a bit preposterous, somewhat light but mainly a lot of fun. I prefer my adventure books to have a bit more subtlety and be slightly harder on the hero than what we have here. Sackett's land is basically an empowerment fantasy. The hero, Barnabas Sackett is a poor man of the fens (these cool marshes) who is seemingly at the very bottom of the pecking order of life (and England). Yet, he is incredibly strong (can wrestle two men), skilled in hunting, fishing, fighting with sword, gun and bow and sailing. Furthermore, though of the lowest class, his father was a soldier who saved the life of a nobleman and though Barnabas never met the nobleman, he is looking out for him and wants him to be his heir. So he even cheats class restrictions.
Despite his layers of privilege, Barnabas starts out in a bad way, having accidentally insulted a dick Earl who is now out for his death. Despite my critiques above, there is a ton of cool adventuring in this book. I especially enjoyed the description of the cultural and geography of the labyrinthine fens in the beginning. He meets a diverse case (except all male but one the love interest) of cool other adventurers, all down in their luck but ready to latch on to a strong leader. We get a moor, a continental soldier, an Italian and my favourite, Jeremy Ring, a sailor looking for work. All are good men, chafing under the oppression of English class hierarchy and criminal scoundrels.
The bulk of the story takes place in the new world, involving a battle between the good ship and the bad ship (which the evil earl has also paid to get rid of Sackett). Everything moves quickly, a bit too easily despite many battles and setbacks (like these guys are good at making bows and arrows!) and yet somehow all very satisfying and moving. I'm definitely putting the next book in the Sackett series (To the Blue Mountains) on my list.
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