Gold on the Hoof: A Classic Western Story of Grit and Determination (Ames Archives Book 3)

The story is well researched and true to the local geography. Some of the trekking to and around El Paso and Las Cruces is eerily familiar, as is Old Mesilla on the Rio Grande and the route of the Butterfield Overland Stage or Wells Fargo route. The characters are painted well in primary colors, and their strong points and flaws all pop out of a rich background. This is highly recommended for anyone interested in westerns, a good romance of the old style, or just very good story tellin'. Take you time and don't read it all at once. I went back to re-read a lot slower, so I didn't miss some important details and side plots."Gold on the Hoof" picks up after Walter Ames has exacted revenge and justice for his slain wife. Now a widower at a fairly young age, he focuses on his growing empire and on support and a home for his men and their families. An irresistible opportunity to purchase cavalry mounts and better breeding stock in Mexico leads Walter Ames and his close companions into a land filled with chaos and bandits. He receives a triple helping of answering his own questions, in terms of horeseflesh, but also solving a Confederate mystery that had literally crossed his path. However, he encounters another irresistible force in the form of a horse rancher who challenges him for the best price ... and he considers a different proposal for the young lady and an important question for her father. Well structured and well done.

I'm grateful Peter Grant takes the time to research and write wonderful stories such as these. Descriptions of scenery, equipment, travel times, and locations are well-researched and allow me to "become one with the story"; there is nothing to jar me out of the story because it all fits. Adventure, challenges, setbacks, and success. Believable dialog even though slightly modernized. I was not aware of St Patrick's Battalion until reading this book. And I personally really like Ames' intermittent meetings with Laughing Raven. This book is hard to put down.

As in the other stories in this series, the author manages to present a realistic look into the world of the Old West. Although fictional, the realistic touches of actual trail drive logistics and the believable combat sequences convey a sense of realism that is often absent in other novels of this genre. The motivations and emotions of all of the characters are also grounded in both history and gritty realism, making then characters into people we can care about. The author scrupulously avoids the trap of projecting modern mores and ideologies onto historical personages, while still presenting interesting , three-dimensional characters. I will jump on the next book in this series - and anything else this fellow writes.

Unfortunately this story wanders all over the place. With unlimited money to dribble over friends, casually picking up more gold to buy whatever comes to hand ….so ridiculous and unrealistic in a plot line that couldn’t decide where it was going.

This edition of the Ames Archives goes in a slightly different direction. Hearing about a probable upcoming war with the Indians, Walt decides to go to Mexico to corner the market on good riding horses. He can buy them cheap, drive them back to Texas, and sell them to the Army.Now all he has to do is hire a few dozen good men who won't steal from him, cross a thousand miles of bandit-infested lands during the dry season, and get the Army to actually pay him...

This one was better than number two. It was exciting and well written. Enjoyed the fact Walt married again and is to be a dad. I have to credit Mr. Grant with a high respect that he could keep up with the many characters in this series. Good job.

Although it would help to have read the previous two you don't need to. This is a moest excellent continuation of the previous two but it stands well on its own.I read it in an evening when I probably should have been working (oops).Hopefully the author will continue this so we know what happens to our hero, but also it would be nice if some of the secondary characters got their own books too.

I typically read SF or Fantasy Fiction, and a wide variety of non fiction.I rarely read Westerns, but I've read just about everything Peter Grant has written, and I've enjoyed them all....so I got his first western, and now i've read three of them. Each book is a stand alone story, but the series has a longer arc, and I'm planning on reading as many as Peter Grant writes....

In the long-ago days when Westerns were easily found in most public libraries I used to devour them - even though most were simple pot-boilers. This new one from Peter Grant is definitely not a pot-boiler, it's the third in a series and excellently done. The research involved is impeccable and takes you back to the real Old West with people who really existed and an authentic setting. Yes, there are gunfights, but the story is really about the struggles of a recent widower to both rebuild his life and grow his business. It is about the problems and opportunities of horse-ranching when the US Army needed more horses than the US itself could provide. If you miss the old days with decent characters and realistic plots, get this book!

Walt Ames can just do no wrong. He's got a plan to go to Mexico, buy up horses cheap and then sell them to the US Army for a profit. Along the way, he and his men face comancheros, banditos, and a pistolero with a grudge. Unfortunately, the bad buy is revealed reasonably early on, and you never get any sense of tension in any of the problems that they face. It's a good story, but when the characters deal so easily with all of the problems they face, you never start to feel that there is any reason to worry that they might fail.There's also the way things conveniently just keep going right for Walt. He saves a girl from some ruffians, and that leads him to the girl's grandfather, who just happens to have a treasure map that leads to a fortune in Confederate gold, and because they find that, they take a different way back to the village and just happen to come across the only ranch in Mexico with amazingly well bred horses to improve Walt's breeding stock. Also coincidently, the daughter of the rancher, is a beautiful woman who Walt falls in love with, and decides he's going to move everyone back to Colorado to live happily forever. And it just happens to turn out the bad guy has been trying to buy all these horses for himself, and Walt has to kill him in duel to save himself and his new wife.

Not quite as good as L'amour but the closest we'll get this side of the grave. Well paced with all the tropes that makes for a great western yarn. Horses, gold, gunslinging and hard brutal miles. When I read about just how long it took to travel it makes me glad to be a child of the internal combustion engine. I'll be bellying up for the 4th entry in this series as the war starts.