Bluster\u2019s Last Stand<\/span> is the frequently hilarious fourth book in Lewis\u2019s \u201cMemoirs of H. H. Lomax\u201d series. In this new entry, Lomax survives the Battle of Adobe Walls, gets into a deadly feud with General George Armstrong Custer (whom he derides as \u201cGeneral Bluster\u201d), and later lands an unusual job in Buffalo Bill\u2019s Wild West Show. Along the way, he also works as a bouncer and guard in a Waco bordello and prospects for gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota.<\/p>\nIn this memoir, Lomax confesses that he has shot and killed General Custer at the Little Bighorn and survived the massacre despite several wounds. And Custer\u2019s shooting may have happened accidentally, yet on purpose. So how and why did Lomax end up at Little Bighorn in the first place, and why was Custer waiting for the right moment to kill Lomax, so he would look like a battlefield casualty?<\/p>\n
Blame it all on \u201cGeneral Bluster,\u201d Lomax relates, \u201cbecause there weren\u2019t enough mirrors in the world to adequately reflect his opinion of himself.\u201d Custer had had outsized presidential ambitions and had refused to take some sound tactical advice from Lomax just before the fatal battle. But, worst of all, some Army firewood had been stolen, and blustering Custer wrongly pinned the rap on Lomax and had him arrested and taken along to Little Bighorn.<\/p>\n
Lewis\u2019s Lomax skewers several aspects of Old West tales. He is an Arkansan whose reputation has grown somewhat bigger than life in Texas and the West, mostly through rumors. Actually, his own mouth, actions, and blunders have kept getting him into scrapes and dangers. And several people, including Custer, have expressed desires to kill him.<\/p>\n
Heightening his personal risks, Lomax is at least one bullet short of being a real gunslinger. He carries a five-shot Colt revolver in a shoulder harness. And Buffalo Bill Cody has given Lomax the derisive nickname \u201cLeadeye,\u201d because Lomax seldom hits anything but prairie when he shoots.<\/p>\n
The three previous H. H. Lomax books are The Demise of Billy the Kid<\/span> (1994, reprinted in 2015); The Redemption of Jesse James<\/span> (1995, reprinted in 2016); and Mix-up at the O.K. Corral<\/span> (1996, reprinted in 2017).<\/p>\nAs Lomax rides across post\u2013Civil War Texas, his opinions of the barely settled state are not high: \u201cYou could ride all day and not see anything worth seeing. Most of Texas was a hundred miles from civilization, fifty miles from water, and six inches from hell. Fortunately, I didn\u2019t see any Comanche, any Kiowa or, thank God, any Texans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preston Lewis keeps this new fictional memoir moving at pleasing pace. Only a very few comma and spelling errors briefly intrude, and he is protective of history and popular legends. In his introduction, he laments that \u201cit has been two decades since a new Lomax adventure has been published.\u201d Dramatic changes in the publishing industry have dictated some of that delay, he notes. But Lewis hints that more H. H. Lomax memoirs may be forthcoming now that Book Four is available.<\/p>\n
Bluster\u2019s Last Stand<\/span> is clever, absorbing Old West entertainment, a book that delights as well as informs.<\/p>\n* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
11.26.2017 WESTERN FICTION Preston Lewis Bluster\u2019s Last Stand: The Memoirs of H. H. Lomax Wild Horse Press Paperback, 978-1-68179-096-1, $19.95…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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