"The Warrior's Path" by Louis L'Amour

Ayep, another L'Amour book. This one's not about Barnabas, as |he died in the last one|; it's about his son Kin instead. 

The book tells us what it's going to be about pretty much right off the bat, with some guy coming to ask Kin and his brother Yance for help. Because two young women (okay, I'm pretty sure one of them is like 10, but the other is an adult) have been abducted.

Naturally, they go on the warpath. I'm not actually sure what the titular "Warrior's Path" is supposed to be, other than a path of some sort. It's not actually much of a plot point.

Kin and Yance learn that this has happened before. Repeatedly. They figure out who's behind it (basically the bad guys are engaged in human trafficking, except we didn't have that term back when this takes place) and Kin tries to stop them, starting with the two most-recently-kidnapped girls. (I'm not sure what to call them because as I said, one of them is like 10, and the other one is an adult.)

The two kidnapped people actually manage to escape without the help of our main character or his brother; kudos to them for that. However, the Bad Guys manage to rekidnap Diana (the older one; will refer to her as Diana, as the younger one kinda disappears from the story) and abscond to Port Royal with her.

So Kin follows them. If you wanted to sum up the story in a conversation, it would go like this: 

Kin: "Stop kidnapping people."

Bad Guys: "No. Stop trying to stop us."

Kin: "No."

Kin shows up in Jamaica, where the Bad Guys promptly attempt to murder him. Repeatedly. Spoiler alert, Kin does not get murdered. Like his dad, Kin's too full of concentrated epicness for that.

Also, like my mom said, Kin and Diana get married. Not really a spoiler, as it's not hard to see that coming.

This book gets 4 stars.

 

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T again, for violence.

 

Favorite lines:

 

    "Have you ever engaged in pugilism?"

    Page 102. "Pugilism" happens to be a favorite word of mine, and having someone ask it here was just awesome.

 

    "Men enter the world to die. I merely expedite matters."

    Page 154. Said by a hired assassin who shortly fails to kill Kin.