The Forgotten Lawmen Part 1 Summary

The Forgotten Lawmen Part 1 by D. B. McCrea is a brief memoir based on the author's experiences as game warden in Moody County, South Dakota. Through McCrea's simple explanations, we learn a lot about his job description, as well as many of the obstacles he faced during his early years as warden. Run-ins with the general public, with poachers, and with superiors make for a relatively varied and interesting reading experience, but I did not find myself gripped consistently during the book. I was alternately intrigued and bored by the technicalities of the job and details about the local community.

The main focus of the book was a series of complaints about how demanding the job was, and how much opposition the author faced when he first came to Moody County. It had the potential to be an inspiring tale of a man working his way towards becoming a respected member of a hostile community - and this is what I assume McCrea was aiming for with his narrative. However, I found the tone to be grating in its constant grumbling and carping, and I found that McCrea's confrontational and over-confident style made it difficult for me to sympathise with his difficulties. There is a good deal of repetition in the book; this is mostly related to the reiterated grievance that the locals spread rumours about the author. While this is obviously

My only complaint in terms of style was that the structure was not particularly well-considered. McCrea jumped about frequently in time and space, often from paragraph to paragraph, in a distracting manner. The chapters that worked best were those in which the author stuck to one time period or event. The formatting of the book is excellent, with a nice layout and several photographs at the halfway point which help the reader to visualise the context. I spotted two errors in punctuation: a misplaced apostrophe and a missing comma. Apart from these minor errors, the book was expertly