Riders of the Purple Sage, By Zane Grey

Zane Grey; I can’t get enough of his books. I used to hate their slightly cheesy plots and over-emphasized attention to the details of setting and landscape, but these days I find something strangely attractive about the less than perfect prose. Zane Grey had a style all his own that keeps me returning again and again to his western novels.

In this particular novel, Riders of the Purple Sage, an unmarried Mormon woman, Jane Withersteen, is determined to be independent and run her own ranch after the death of her father. Disagreements with the town elders expose her to rustlers and violence. In the midst of her problems, Lassiter, an infamous man of violence comes to the town, searching for the grave of a woman Jane was very close to. Lassiter allies himself with Jane and signs on to her payroll to help her protect her property and the lives of her hired men. Like many of Zane Grey’s novels, Riders of the Purple Sage tackles both romance and the moral dilemmas encountered in both love and violence. It is a prime example of why a hundred years later readers are still picking up the works of Zane Grey.