Mr. Howell, I agree completely. I just wish he'd have done it more often.
My dad was a very enthusiastic reader. Some excellent books he introduced to me in the western genre that stood out are, "The Man Who Rode Midnight" by Elmer Kelton, "Gopher Dick" by Lee Sage (very hard to find), and "Monte Walsh" by Jack Schaefer. "Monte Walsh" is so different in style from "Shane" that you wouldn't realize they were written by the same author.
Some of the early work by Zane Gray was pretty good too, but he too began writing the same book over and over in later years.
