Comstock Lode

Name: Comstock Lode
Rating: 4.6 (1707 reviews)

by Louis L’Amour

First published 1981

Amazon

4.6(1,707)

Set in Nevada from the Comstock silver boom beginning in 1859, Comstock Lode is a novel built around the pressures of its historical setting. It was just a godforsaken mountainside, but no place on earth was richer in silver. For a bustling, enterprising America, this was the great bonanza. The dreamers, the restless, the builders, the vultures--they were lured by the glittering promise of instant riches and survived the brutal hardships of a mining camp to raise a legendary boom town. But some sought more than wealth. Val Trevallion, a loner haunted by a violent past. Grita Redaway, a radiantly beautiful actress driven by an unfulfilled need. Two fiercely independent spirits, together they rose above the challenges of the Comstock to stake a bold claim on the future

The historical background is Comstock Lode and Virginia City. L’Amour uses practical details of travel, work, weather, weapons, distance and local authority to make the setting more than a backdrop. The result combines fast-moving adventure with a strong sense of how isolation, weak institutions and rapid economic change could shape individual choices.