Brionne

by Louis L'Amour

Major James Brionne brought Dave Allard to trial for murder. Just before the hanging, Dave swore his brothers would take vengeance. . .Four year later the Allard boys returned to settle the score. Only Brionne's son escaped. They murdered his wife, destroyed his home, and left Brionne nothing but the charred ruins of his past to haunt him. Seeking peace and a new life, Brionne and the boy headed west. But the Allards hadn't finished with him. He knew they'd call him for a showdown-and this time he'd be ready...

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Adventure, Action, Classics, Audiobook

151 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Louis Dearborn L'Amour was an American novelist and short story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels, though he called his work "frontier stories". His most widely known Western fiction works include Last of the Breed, Hondo, Shalako, and the Sackett series. L'Amour also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), and poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. His books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

Reviews

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

"James Brionne was a tall, wide-shouldered man of thirty-three, his face strongly boned, and darkened by sun and wind. He possessed that rare quality known as presence, but beneath it there was something else, for those who knew men of violence had a way of looking twice at Brionne. Under the dignity, the poise, and the military bearing there was something very tough and dangerous." -- page 11

The man called Brionne is one rugged hombre - a former Union Army cavalry and intelligence officer (and well-liked by his boss man General Ulysses S. Grant, who early on makes a cameo appearance), Brionne suffers the devastating loss - courtesy of the vengeful brothers of a dastardly man that he once arrested for murder - of his wife and their Virginia homestead in the heartbreaking opening pages. Seeking some new opportunities, Brionne and his ten year-old son Mat then head west by train into Utah (still two decades away from U.S. statehood) and promptly meet / befriend a small cast of interesting characters such as the durable bachelorette socialite Miranda Lowery and the mysterious young gunslinger Dutton Mowry. Although Brionne seeks peace he knows the miserable Allard family will continue gunning for him, and the last half or so of the story is a mountainous cat-and-mouse chase / showdown between the parties. So that part was fairly standard suspense, but the initial half of the book with smaller moments of establishing the characters was more involving.

[Todd Coburn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stand for the moment in the shoes of a boy whose mother has just been killed by wicked men, or walk the path of her husband who returns home a few hours too late to stop the killers. Think the thoughts of a good man, a strong one, who will not yield to injustice or fear.

This book will shape your character, as many of L'Amour's books do.

Read and be strong.

[Eva-Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

2022 review:

Hmmm. Taking my rating from four stars to three stars. This time around, I found the story and the characters to be somewhat sparse and lacking. (Except Mowry. He was awesome.) And I couldn't get over the fact that James' wife commits suicide at the opening of the book, almost...randomly?. I think I've just read more GOOD L'Amour novels since the last time I read Brionne. *shrugs*

2017 review:

Another great read from L'Amour! Really liked the characters and story.

[hotsake (André Troesch) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit different than the normal L'Amour story but still a very engaging tale.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Louis L'Amour really is a master storyteller. There are very few surprises in Brionne. The reader is kept abreast of the chase from all perspectives. There isn't much mystery, but it is very satisfying to be on the trail, in the landscape and witnessing the skill of Major James Brionne. Nothing confirms L'Amour's storytelling prowess quite like the ending here. L'Amour leaves an intentional loose end but says what is important.

I would like to man-slap the idiot who writes the introductory blurb on the front page of L'Amour's books. This is the second consecutive novel that was damaged because too much was revealed about the novel's climax.

[KOMET · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's a tight, well-written story of a man (Major James Brionne, formerly of the U.S. Army) whose home in Virginia was torched and his wife killed by a gang set on destroying him because of his previous work which led to the arrest, trial, conviction, and hanging of the murderer Dave Allard.

The time is the early 1870s. Brionne with his son Mat (who had barely managed to escape the clutches of the Allard Gang in Virginia) make their way out west to Utah Territory to eke out a new life there in the desert landscape. There they are tracked down by the Allards and the outcome is not without its thrills and chills.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 5 out of 5]

During a break-in of her home Anne Brionne sends her son to safety and then after killing one intruder turns a gun on herself to avoid rape. Her husband and son move west seeking a new life. On the train they meet a woman seeking her father's mine. The Brionnes are pursued by the people who were responsible for Anne Brionne's death and want to kill them .

[Rod Innis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good western story by my favorite western author. I read this one years ago, but I am reading a number of them again. It had been a good while since I had read this one. I didn't remember much of anything about the story.

[John Fite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never read anything by Louis I didn't like. Been reading him since I was a kid and will forever.

[Kaylee Condos · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Western I read, and I love it! 😍 🤘

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first experience with the Louis L'Amour.
Why ever had I waited so long?
I had an old friend that was an avid reader of this man's work, now I know why.
From the opening minutes of the CD, I picked up on the crisp writing style of the author.
From the things he experienced in life, he would be able to draw rich, fully formed characters.
His travels gave him the freedom to be able to write accurately of the places he had been too.
Just in his childhood for example, his parents took their kids and headed south in the winter of 1923, when the economy turned really bad. Over the next seven or eight years, they skinned cattle in west Texas, baled hay in the Pecos Valley of New Mexico, worked in the mines of Arizona, California and Nevada, and in the sawmills and lumber camps of the Pacific Northwest. It was in colorful places like these that Louis met a wide variety of people, upon whom he later modeled the characters in his novels, many of them actual Old West personalities who had survived into the 1920s and 1930s.
This story progresses quickly and you are not quite sure what is lurking around the next bend.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read a Louis L’Amour book that I did not like and Brionne is no exception. L’Amour really knew how to tell a story. He writes of a time when good guys were really good and the bad guys, well they were bad. I like the fact that most of the story took place in the high Uintah’s in northern Utah, an area I have hiked in many times. I am not sure L’Amour spent much time doing research on the geography, that that is okay with me. It was still a fun book, with good characters and a happy ending. This book is best read next to a fire on a cold afternoon. A camp fire would be great, but sitting by the fireplace in your family room is okay as well.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gang of crooks descend on Major James Brionne's home after he had seen to the death of one of their number. He's not there. His wife dies, his young son escapes, the house burns.

President Grant finds that Brionne is unwilling to do jobs for him. He takes his son Mat west, with plans to settle.

On the train, a grass fire causes him to meet several people -- a young woman whom he put in charge of Mat (telling his son to stay with her because she might be frightened), and a drifter known to be a good gunhand among them.

He also realizes that the gang was in the neighborhood. Purely by chance -- if being the location most easily gotten to by rail is chance, but they won't realize it.

It involves the woman's inheritance, a man her uncle staked, considerable amounts of stealth, and more.

[Randy Tramp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Major James Brionne had war declared on him by criminals he'd brought to trial.

Brionne's house is burned, his wife killed. With his son in mind, the Major abandons his political career with President Grant and seeks safety in the west.

Only that doesn't happen.

I love the feeling I get when reading L'Amours's book, this one no different. Whether it's being on a train with a wild fire headed toward you or on cliffs looking across the landscape trying to find the bad guys, it's all exciting.

Add to the land, a father's love for his son, and a heartfelt story unfolds.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first Louis L'Amour. I picked a Jan 1996 Bantam paperback reissue out of of my husband's stack because it sounded like a plot I would like and is one he hasn't read or seen. The hero is a good man and the villains are pure evil. I didn't read along much, but did go back in a few spots to sort out who some of the secondary characters were. I marked one passage:

"One lives with trouble," Brionne said. "There is no need to think about a time without it, for it is always here. A man grows strong by standing against the wind, and eternal peace would bring no happiness.
Man needs strife of some kind, something to struggle against. Although that struggle need not be with other men."

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major after the Civil War comes home to find his wife dead by her own hand to avert mistreatment by local thugs. His young son had escaped and hid as the scoundrels burned his home. Dad and son head west to start anew.

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was surprisingly good. I read this because it was laying on the table at work, and I was bored. I've never been into Westerns, but this was ok. Passed the time and was interesting.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... I decided to attempt reading a "western" or "Frontier Story" (as Louis L'Amour apparently called his novels). It's... interesting. The book is really short and the story seems simple. It's kind of like watching a short movie. I'm only on chapter 6 and I think I'll finish it with a good view of the book. It doesn't seem spectacular, but if I ever need entertainment that involves cowboys...

Edit: Okie dokie. I finished it. It was really short. I guess it was sort of entertaining. I enjoyed the gunfight in the end, but the whole thing just seemed to be glaze. I would read another book by Louis L'Amour if there wasn't anything else to read or if I was bored, but this wasn't one of my favorites...

[Shamae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good book but not as good as some of L'Amour's other books. I don't think he developed the characters as well as he could have. But it was a quick, fun read. Westerns are my guilty pleasures.

[Marian.brady · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy a good western every now and then and you usually can't go wrong with Louis Lamour. This was not my favorite of his, but I still enjoyed it.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Predictable yet enjoyable. A quick read that ends happily. It helps brace you for the next serious book you have to read.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good. Easy read.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been a long time since I read a western. Great escape!

[A. L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never read Louis L'Amour before, but he's such a household name in my area that I wanted to give at least one book a try.  I know there are other more popular books by him, even a couple that have been made into movies, but I wanted to just try a random one.  I picked this one up at random on the shelf and it was... okay.  I admit I was completely taken by surprise with the death of the wife and mother within the first few pages.  I was honestly not expecting it to be so shocking or violent.  Silly me, seeing as it's a cowboy book, but L'Amour has always been touted as being so clean!  Anyway.

Three things I liked about this book: Very, very realistic cowboys, horsemen, settlers, etcetera.  Having grown up around such rugged types, I know what to look for, but it's not often I come across such a genuine representation of the type.  Secondly, the plot really trots along without any lagging.  The female representation is pretty good, too.  They might need rescuing, but there's no damsels in distress here!

Three things I did not like about this book: While it did move along pretty quickly, there were times when I lost the plot and wasn't entirely certain what was happening and why X was shooting at Y.  When it wasn't losing me, the plot was highly predictable.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but kind of disappointing.  The son seemed kind of pointless like he was just there for the extra sympathy factor or something.  

Not my thing, but I could see others enjoying it.

[Whiskey Tango · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went through a western kick when I was in 7th grade. Louis L'Amour was the most famous western writer of the time. I pledged to read all of his books, and this is where I began. I recently revisited this book when I read it aloud to my son who is younger than I when I first read this book. It is about courage in the face of the death of a parent and resilience during dislocation and the pursuit of revenge.

Virginia. "The night brought a soft wind." Seven-year-old Mat awakens his mother when he hears the sound of men along with the rustling of leaves. Anne Brionne forces herself to think calmly as she remembers the threat of revenge of the Allard family after her husband, Major James Brionne, testified against Dave Allard who was found guilty of murder and hanged.

Anne commands her son to run out the cellar door to the cave and wait there until James Brionne, who is expected to return tomorrow fetches him. Anne honors the concept of home and refuses to run. "Generations of pioneer ancestry did not allow her to take the ownership of home lightly." She remembers her grandmother who had to defend the home against Indians. She fetches a shotgun and a derringer and calmly waits on the landing of the second floor to greet the home invaders, who chat among themselves about raping her in very oblique language. "Now, there's manners for ya. There sets a real lady. I always wondered what them kind was like. Looks like we figure to find out." She informs them that her husband is not here. "This is not an hour we welcome guests." Anne blasts the man who rushes her. She pulls her derringer. Missing Cotton Allard with her first shot; she saves the last shot for herself. Mat witnesses his mother's death and then runs away through the cellar door and hides until his father finds him the next morning. (I read this aloud to my 8-year-old son. It left an impression on him. He remembered that Anne shot herself but did not understand why. I explained that some deaths come fast and don't hurt as much. Some come slowly and more painfully.)

Chapter 2
St. Louis. "It's a lonely place to which we are going." Major James Brionne is a French Canadian who settled in Virginia. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute (where I considered going and where my brother had gone) and spent a year at St. Cyr. Twelve years a soldier, he fought the Cheyenne at Solomon's fork, was a western scout, and then served counter-espionage in Europe against Confederate spies. He also served on the staff of General Grant, who now beseeches him to work for him as he has been elected President. Grant is a good man but he is too trusting. Brionne is an expert in not trusting people. "He wants an axe that will cut no matter where the chips fall," Devine says that Grant needs him; however, Brionne refuses because his son needs him more, and he has already given too much. He resolves to travel west with his son to a place so far from civilization that only Indian trails will take them there. He promises his son that they will be safe and that he must never leave him alone to face the Allreads. Nobody knows where Allreads ran to, but even Brionne's enemies feel sorry for him. Brionne hates pity and cites it as a reason to head west. A man at the bar of the hotel gives Brionne a menacing look.

Chapter 3-8 UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Chapter 9
"During the night the wind came roaring across the face of the mountain, roaring through the treetops, whining and the crevices of the rocks, and stirring small pebbles and rock fragments to start rolling. The wind moaned across the high lakes in among the peaks. Overhead the great trees bent before the wind, and against the sky, the ragged peaks lost themselves in that tearing clouds; they broke the clouds apart and appeared again, but vanished once more amid the rising sea of darkness. It's alright, Matt. It is only a storm. The mountains do not mind the storms. There have been many storms upon these rocks.

Mat was calmed by the stillness of his father beside him and wanted to be like him, so sure and quiet. Brionne advises his son that a man learns to appear that way, and after a while, it is the same thing. "Look to the hills, Matt. They're quiet." The storm sweeps over them and are gone, and most of man's troubles pass the same way. That is one reason I brought you out here, just learned that. Whenever you feel that things are getting too much for you go to the mountains or the desert-- it smooths out the wrinkles in your mind."

As Brionne and son hide in a cove, Mowbry and Miranda pass by. Brionne decides not to greet them because he is suspicious of Mowbry. Then six more riders pass and Brionne thinks it more plausible that the Allards headed west to escape just like he and his son did. Brionne and son ride down the trail to await Mowbry and Miranda in the woods as they attempt to throw the Allards off their trail.

Chap 10-11 Under Construction

12. "There was no blood anywhere on the sand." Brionne returns to his campsite, but Miranda and Mat are not there, and there is no sign of a struggle and no shots were fired. Did Mowry betray them or escape? Brionne beats down panic and rage and concentrates on solution. A cloud envelops the mountain. Now two enemies: Allards and the storm, which might be a friend. He climbs along the ridge with a black, shattered cliff that had sheered away with an army of dead trees. risking fall to his death to bring the attack to Allard gang because they would expect him to retreat or conceal like a sniper. This is a primeval world and he is the primeval man, far from civilization. He was facing what all primitive men face, the horror of unreason and men who kill without passion and who kill men who use their minds in a better way. As he surveys the felled trees from a slide, a shot ricochets rock fragments. Brionne returns fire, missing the figure who scurries away in the cloud. He was the hunter, alert for those other hunters. Something ancient had arisen in him. he

Cotton Allard reveals his hatred of Mrs. Brionne for the dignity of her death that took away his pleasure. He is not sure whether Mowry or Brionne killed his men or who shot at third.

[Oleta Blaylock · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Mr. L'Amour. I know that many think that westerns are just junk literature but Mr. L'Amour was a self educated man with a vast experience made necessary by the war and the great depression. He knew the need for education if it wasn't a formal one. Man can become very wise if he will just read books, fiction and non-fiction. I think that Mr. L'Amour should be given more respect for the knowledge that he imparts in his experiences to a grateful public.

This is a story of a man with vast experience in a time when there was still a great deal of violence all around. He is a man that knows what he wants and how to go about it. His experience for the wilderness and the human condition makes him what Mr. L'Amour thought was best of the human race. Mr. Brionne is a man that loves his son and wants only the best for him. He loved his wife and is very proud of the courage she shows when their home was invaded by unscrupulous and evil men. Mr. Brionne wants a better life for his son and some measure of peace for himself.

This is a quick easy read. It is an entertaining read that will make for a wonderful afternoon's diversion. If you want something that isn't going to bring you down than consider one of Mr. L'Amour's books. Who knows you might learn something new.

[Ward G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad outing west here.

Has some different elements, than main fare.
The opening, kind of shocking. Part of a family feud.
The main characters wife and son at risk.
Will not spoil it, but one does not survive.

Set just after the civil war. Heading out west.
Some ambushes, and as usual. A character, that turns out. Not as he first seems.
Usually it seems L'Amour has at least one red herring or mystery character along.

Main problem with this one.
By story end. Not all the loose ends tied up.
You just have to assume, how some things went.

Other then that. Again great attention to surroundings, settings.
Very good with small details. In simple terms or words.
So does not drag to much, over all telling.
Still would have liked to have had.
A few items confirmed how they went, that did not happen.

[Tyler Rosenhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is one that I’ve already read before but it never ceases to entertain me. I love the plot and I just wish it was a little longer of a book. James Brionne is such a cool character and I love how well described he is. As a former United States Military man, he has so many useful traits and skills, and he uses them frequently throughout the book. I also think it is awesome how the author describes the antagonists. When I read this, I really felt a hatred for the Allards and it made the whole story feel realistic. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes historical fiction or old western books.

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

After his murder conviction, David Allard screamed in the courtroom at James Brionne that his family would kill him and his family. Several months after his hanging, his family did come for Brionne. They burned his farm to the ground and brought about the death of his wife, Anne. James fled west with his son, Mat. They take the train to Cheyenne but are shot at. They decide to head to Utah. Along the way, they meet Miranda Loften, who has come west to take possession of the silver mine her uncle Rody Brennan has left her.

The Allards are following him. They are also interested in Brennan’s silver mine.

Fine, quick read.

[Truly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karena menangkap dan mengadili Dave Allard, Mayor James Brionne harus kehilangan istrinya.
Kelompok Allard melakukan balas dendam setelah 4 tahun berlalu. Mereka menyerang rumah Brionne ketika ia sedang tidak ada di rumah. Anne, istri Brionne berhasil melumpuhkan seorang penyerang sebelum menembakkan pistol ke jantungnya sendiri. Anaknya Mat berhasil selamat melalui jalur rahasia yang langsung menuju gua di bawah akar pohon kayu tua di tepi sungai. Butuh waktu, namun pada akhirnya dendam terbalaskan juga.

Membaca buku ini, membuat saya jadi teringat pada film saat saya kecil dahulu, Bonanza (jadi ketahuan umur deh)