Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten

In his interesting biography on Ira Aten, Bob Alexander meticulously re-creates the career of the Texas Ranger from his enlistment in the Frontier Battalion to his post-Ranger days as a sheriff and rancher.

The excellence of the author’s research is indicated by plentiful endnotes. But Alexander’s narrative style veers from one bad extreme to the other, from slangy “conversational” style to one of purplish “fine” writing, as if he was determined to make high drama of Aten’s life. Alas, the author has, apparently, never met an adjective, adverb or cliché that he didn’t like.