Before he switched to cop stories, Elmore Leonard wrote a few excellent western novels. None of them are cliched, and one in particular told the story of a fairly minor scrape, contrasted against what the sensationalist, exaggerated newspapers and dime novels of the time wrote. Good stuff.(I guess things don't change much.)
    My mother taught me to read when I was three. (Not bragging - it screwed me up horribly when I hit school.) I was four when I snuck into the attic and found 4 dusty books by Zane Grey, and 4 by Rudyard KIpling. I stumbled through them all. That set a standard that I still expect writers meet, and hooked me on western novels. Louis L'Amours' Sackett stories are pretty good, but some of his later stuff is just literary travesty. Especially the stories he wrote after he died. (Not that unusual. Elvis is still releasing new songs.)

O'Meara