King of the Mountain (Wilderness #1) by David Thompson (David Robbins)

In the year 1828, 19-year-old Nathaniel King is slaving away at an accountant’s job in New York City, struggling to earn enough to keep his fiancée happy and living the kind of luxurious life to which she has grown accustomed. Afraid he will never earn enough to please her, he jumps at a chance to gain a vast treasure. Seems his Uncle Ezekiel (Zeke), a man who moved to the great unexplored West some ten years previously had found this treasure and now wants Nate to have it. Nate travels to St. Louis, meets his uncle and together they make the adventurous trek to the cabin in the Rocky Mountains where the treasure awaits.

I’ve long wanted to begin this series of western/frontier novels. The prolific David Robbins, writing under the name David Thompson did not disappoint. He packs this novel with one adventure after another, from a thief ambush in a dark alley, to a ferocious grizzly bear attack, to several hair-raising (pun-intended) encounters with various Indian tribes. Along their journey, Nate and his uncle share experiences and Nate learns as much as he can, learning of the beauty of his surroundings as well as the violent kill-or-be-killed nature of life in the wild.

The novel works very well as an origin story of Nate King, an unlikely Mountain man but a true hero of frontier fiction. The end of this novel sets up the next and it's easy to see this lends itself to a lengthy series. Robbins does add some social commentary at regular intervals, especially in pointing out the characteristics and foibles of civilized life in the Eastern US appearing less attractive and less honest than what is experienced by the hard-working frontiersman. The novel is easy reading and harkens back to the pulp style of ending each chapter in a cliffhanger.

A fun read to be sure. I now have yet another long series to pursue but that is the sort of problem I like to have.