Last of the Breed | 
| Author: Louis L'amour
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $5.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 14828
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 0553280422
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780553280425
ASIN: 0553280422
Publication Date: June 1, 1987
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Product Description
Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L'Amour's hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier--and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.
Download Description
Here is the kind of authentically detailed epic novel that has become Louis L'Amour's hallmark. It is the compelling story of U.S. Air Force Major Joe Mack, a man born out of time. When his experimental aircraft is forced down in Russia and he escapes a Soviet prison camp, he must call upon the ancient skills of his Indian forebears to survive the vast Siberian wilderness. Only one route lies open to Mack: the path of his ancestors, overland to the Bering Strait and across the sea to America. But in pursuit is a legendary tracker, the Yakut native Alekhin, who knows every square foot of the icy frontier--and who knows that to trap his quarry he must think like a Sioux.
From the Paperback edition.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 67 more reviews...
 Frozen Trip June 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Louis L'Amour was writing at the top of his game in the years prior to his death. LAST OF THE BREED is one of the finest examples of his story telling skills as he took the American West to Siberia. This story was written before the opening of the Iron Curtain revealed the kidnapping of American pilots by the Soviets, which is another reason it is so intriguing.
Joseph "Joe Mack" Makatozi is a descendant of a Scotch grandfather and Native Americans. Warriors all. His struggle to escape captivity by the Soviets across Siberia is the very essence of wilderness survival and high adventure. If you've never spent evenings in the company of Louis L'Amour take LAST OF THE BREED as your introduce to a fine craftsman. It ranks near the top of my list of favorites.
Writing as a Small BusinessQualifying Laps: A Brewster County NovelThe Bluegrass Dream: A Wilderness Adventure of Early SettlersUnder the Liberty OakGuns Across the Rio: A Texas Ranger in Old Mexico
 Got it the first time June 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mediocre writing makes 'Last of the Breed' a dull and frustrating book. Does L'Amour believe his readers lack intelligence and memory? How else can one explain the frequent lapses into pedantry or the repeated repetitiveness? 'Last of the Breed' contains numerous mini-lectures on climate, cold weather survival, Soviet history, 'red' Indians, etc. It also contains phrases that L'Amour loves to repeat, such as the need for meat and fat when hiking across cold lands or that death will result minutes after immersion in cold water when the temperature is 40 below zero. Even if a reader had not known these facts, writing them once is enough. After reading numerous such phrases for the third (or fourth or fifth) time, my internal reply became, "I got it the first time."
With an interesting main plot (wilderness trained Air Force pilot Joe Makatozi (Mack) escapes from a Siberian prison) and an interesting protagonist (intelligent, athletic Sioux who knows and loves the 'old ways'), this novel had great potential. Unfortunately, L'Amour does not stick with the main plot and main protagonist. The subplots make little sense, and the minor characters provide no interest or appeal.
The first illogical subplot involves the capture of Joe Mack. Somehow, a GRU colonel in Siberia has enough influence 1. to know about a top test pilot, 2. to get a Soviet operative in the U.S. Air Force personnel department to reassign Joe Mack to an Alaska posting, 3. to know when Joe Mack will be flying an experimental jet over the Bering Sea, 4. to have a special Soviet ship positioned below the flight path that can bring down the jet without guns or missiles (electromagnetic pulse beam?), and 5. to have the downed pilot brought to a special interrogation prison more than 1000 miles inland. That's one helluva colonel.
A second illogical subplot involves Joe Mack's desire for revenge on the GRU colonel. Joe Mack escapes the prison and then plans to spend a year or more to cross half of Siberia on foot, cross the Bering Sea, report back to the Air Force, return secretly to Siberia, and find the GRU colonel for a man-to-man showdown. If he needs revenge, why doesn't he just loop back to the prison a week or so after his escape? Why delay revenge for more than a year, especially since his odds of surviving are so low?
A third illogical subplot involves an old Lithuanian man and his adult daughter who are living in a cabin in Siberia when they encounter Joe Mack. The three get along smashingly, Joe Mack and the woman silently fall in love (maybe), and Joe Mack promises to help them escape the USSR after he returns to kill the GRU colonel. This makes little sense: Joe Mack had been avoiding contact with people but then stays with these two for weeks despite encountering a nasty man in a nearby cabin who hates him. Joe Mack had a chance to kill this man but did not take it. Why would our savage protagonist leave alive an enemy who will report him and who also might harm his Lithuanian friends? After Joe Mack leaves that is exactly what happens: hundreds of soldiers now search for him, and his friends had to leave and go into hiding from the KGB and GRU.
It's been more than twenty years since I last read a Louis L'Amour book: his simplistic westerns were unappealing to me. I bought this book because of its very different plot and setting, and because it garnered great reviews. But, this book reads like his older westerns except it is longer and even more repetitive. Avoid 'Last of the Breed' unless you like other L'Amour novels.
A masterly tale from the master of adventure March 5, 2008
I read LAST OF THE BREED decades ago & wanted to reread it & have it in my library. Once again I was thrilled by the tale of a US military Sioux pilot whose experimental airplane is brought down over Siberia, back in the days when the Soviet Union was still a menace. Interred in a gulag Joe Mack's only chance for escape is to do it immediately before the lack of food saps his strength. So he does, in an ingeniously simply way & sets out across the desolate tundra, finding friends & foes on his way to freedom. I'm not a fan of L'Amour's writing although this one is a pure modernday survival adventure. Occasionally repetitive, always on the go with something to say about living one's life.
Wait, this isn't a western? December 1, 2007
The pure talent & genius of Louis L'Amour.... WOW! This is by far one of my favorite books of all time! One of the 1st novels I actually enjoyed reading so much I didn't want to put it down. I was assigned this book in high school (early 90's) and thought, "crap, not a friggin' western!" My grandpa liked L'amour and all I knew was that all of HIS book had pictures of cowboys on the cover. Well, I was soooo pleasantly surprised by this one that I actually started reading the westerns too!!!
Needs a Part II August 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Awsome book. The only thing I don't like about this book is that Lamour will not be able to write the sequal which would have been great.
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