Give a Boy a Gun

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Claude Dallas Jr. was raised in Upper Michigan and Ohio by a father whose philosophy was ``give a boy a gun and you're makin' a man.'' After high school, the young man went to the rugged border area of Idaho, Oregon and Nevada and worked as a cow-puncher and handyman on several ranches. But his dream was evidently to become a 19th centurystyle mountain man and so he turned to poaching, often killing animals even though he had no need for the meat. In 1981, he killed two game wardens in front of a witness. On the run for 15 months, he was eventually captured in a shootout and found guilty of manslaughter in a singularly bizarre trial. The trial is well told, but the book as a whole is a disappointment from the author of such fine true crime tales as ``Son'' and The Man with the Candy. November 8

Library Journal

``Give a boy a gun and you're makin' a man,'' Claude Dallas, Sr., is quoted as saying in this book about his son, Claude Jr., a self-made cowboy, trapper, and ``mountain man'' who was convicted of manslaughter in the shooting deaths of two Idaho game wardens. Claude Jr. was well-liked by many, including a sympathetic jury which rejected possible first or second degree murder verdicts. Was it a case of self-defense or outright murder? Olsen, who last wrote the popular `` Son'': a psychopath and his victims ( LJ 11/15/83), skillfully presents his viewpoint in a readable tale more reminiscent of Old West traditions than of the 1980s. Recommended. Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis