Expense Account, Mint
Introduced to Westerns some 15 years ago, they are now my best de-stress read. Among them the stack of Louis L’Amour books takes up an entire bookshelf. While at one level the books are about guns and fights, read as a series, it is one giant story of the settlement of a continent and the transformation of a nation from nomadic tribal to settled institutional. Such times of transition throw up the worst and the best. L’Amour heroes were the best who fought with some of the worst greasy gun slingers who wore their guns tied down low and… Right. Let me get back to the column.
Many stories talked of lawless towns with no marshal where justice was done through the lynch mob. Like a pack, led by the worst of the rabble-rousers, aided by the otherwise decent daytime crowd, the mob looked for the next person to string up the nearest cottonwood tree. Public opinion based on some quick information thrown together was enough evidence for the mob to turn into a lynch pack baying for blood.