Slow in the middle, end was worth it. Sad commentary on how judicial decisions often take into consideration the cost of a trial and the political future of the participants rather than justice. Sad how juries look at emotional justification rather than facts. Sad that the victimsreputation was slaughtered to protect the guilty. Good heavens don't these people have spell checkers? An error on every page, doesn't anyone believe in doing your best any more? Frequent stray numbers, what was that about.... ( )

This was a highly readable book about the story of Claude Dallas, the culture of guns, hunting, and trapping in the rural American west, and the failings of our criminal justice system.

The author is a compelling storyteller, so the actual storyline about Claude Dallas's life, the murders, and the trial is easy to read and engaging. Additionally, the author interviewed so many people and painted such a vivid picture of the actors involved in the case that I felt as if I had a real glimpse of the culture in northern Nevada and southern Idaho.

This book was written awhile ago, but it is nonetheless relevant today, given the current situation with Cliven Bundy and his free-roaming cattle in Nevada. Claude Dallas held similar views about the government's role in land management, hunting, and trapping, and styled himself a live-off-the-land mountain man (who clung to this self-image despite the fact that he needed people to bring him provisions, including pudding, while he "wintered" "alone" in the wilderness). The most fascinating part of the book is the description of the juror deliberations and the "Dallas cheerleaders" who showed up in court to support a guy who gave less than compelling evidence of self defense. So many people rallied around Dallas, jurors included, because they believed that a guy with such a charming and folksy disposition had to be justified. I'd be curious to see if these same people, who liberally used racist language, would feel similarly if a non-white person had committed the same act. The book definitely exposes some of the enormous problems with juror bias.

One final note. I am giving the book four stars because the content is great, but I'd give it zero stars if I were judging it based on the Kindle formatting. I've read other older books that have clearly been converted into e-reader format, but this one is far and away the worst conversion I've ever seen. The formatting errors and typos make the book almost unreadable at some points, and one read-through by a semi-literate editor would've caught 99% of the errors. ( )

This is a compelling story and especially poignant for those who live in the modern west. The myths, legends and values of the "old west" are used by some to justify antisocial and lawless behavior. This story, as told by the crime writer, Jack Olsen, is a perfect example of an individual wrapping himself in the guise of the rugged individualist while in fact surviving as a perfect parasite. Claude Dallas sponged off people, the land, cruelly and wastefully harvesting animals to finance a marginal exsistence at best. The rugged beauty of the Great Basin is the backdrop for this disturbing story of a sociopath bent on playing out a twisted, paranoid fantasy in which he is justified in killing authority figures. ( )