Hondo

Name: Hondo
Rating: 4.5 (4594 reviews)

by Louis L’Amour

First published 1953

Amazon

4.5(4,594)

Hondo Lane knows the Arizona border country and the Apache better than most white settlers. During a period of growing conflict, he encounters Angie Lowe, who is raising her young son alone on an isolated ranch and refuses to abandon the home she has built despite the increasing danger around her.

Hondo's connection with Angie is complicated by the Apache leader Vittoro and by the broader violence developing between Indigenous communities, settlers and soldiers. Hondo moves between worlds without fully belonging to any of them, and his ability to read the desert and understand Apache intentions becomes essential to Angie's survival. The novel combines a frontier romance with a conflict in which personal loyalties are repeatedly tested by a rapidly hardening war.