Louis L'Amour's Son, Beau L'Amour, Reveals How He Resurrected His Father's Cold War Thriller

If you love Westerns, there's a good chance you love the works of Louis L'Amour. But just because L'Amour was famous for Westerns doesn't mean that's all he ever wrote. In fact, if you're looking for a classic adventure novel that will remind you of Clive Cussler with a dash of Ian Fleming, look no further than the just-released Skyring Water. This Cold War-era thriller is all about a missing submarine, buried treasure, and so much more.

In celebration of Father's Day 2026, Men's Journal spoke with Louis L'Amour's son, Beau L'Amour, who co-authored several books with his father while the elder L'Amour was still living. Most recently, L'Amour penned Skyring Water, a posthumous Louis L'Amour novel. Essentially, this book is a reboot of a lost manuscript of L'Amour's father, and a great throwback to adventure books of the old school. Men's Journal spoke to L'Amour about resurrecting this story, the need for adventure stories, and why Westerns will never die.

Men's Journal: How much of your father's original manuscript did you have to rewrite?

This is a complete revision of an earlier novel that my dad wrote. Every word you're reading is mine. But the story goes back to roughly 1937 or 1938, when you first see the ghosts of this story. A previous book that I co-authored with my dad was No Traveller Returns, which was his first attempt at a novel. And hiding in the background of that, there was a C-level or D-level plot about these nefarious characters pursuing a treasure down the coast of Chile is very obviously the first indication of the plot that shows up in Skyring Water. That was the first ghost of the story.

But then, in roughly 1960, my dad wrote mabye a 220-page treasure hunt adventure novel. But he put that in a drawer because it was not a Western. Westerns were the thing he was working on at the time, and it was going to be difficult for him to find a publisher for it. Later, when I was in my 20s, we had some long conversations about what he might do with and I pointed out that he had written a short story that dealt with resurgent Nazism in South America. So, I said, " Why don't you bring in some of those themes into this story? At that point, it became a Cold War thriller, which wasn't a problem.

There's a line early in the book that mentions the covers of men's adventure magazines. Why is lost treasure so synonymous with Men's Adventure fiction?

I look at my dad, and he wrote a number of lost treasure stories throughout his life. If you paid attention to what he was writing, he was the guy who was interested in going out and finding treasure. Of course, he didn't actually do that. He was a hardworking guy who stayed at home and did what he needed to do, and proceeded with his job and didn't go off on crazy adventures. And, I think when you look at my dad's generation writing treasure hunt stories, the story is the tale of how it got there. It's not just the tale of pursuing it. The story is about discovering a deeper story or uncovering another level of story.

Why are fantasy adventures so important for men?

You've got to have some dreams of a more exciting life, even if you don't live one; you have to have something to think about, or a fantasy life that allows you to go on great. But, even in occupations like writing, there's a risk that's not unlike going out and hunting a mammoth. In general, pay follows risk. If I have a gardener, he gets paid every day that he shows up. I don't get paid until I finish a book. It could be five years, and it's all speculative. So speculative work, risk work, you get more for that. That's your mammoth quest today.

What lessons do you think your father imparted to you?

You see men going off and doing these sometimes crazy speculative things in the books, but if there's one thing my dad kind of lectures about in his work, it's doing the work. It's learning how to do things, gathering life experience, and putting it to work, being responsible. There's almost like a dual message there. There's the fun thing that might not be all that responsible that occurs in the story, but there's also kind of the constant drumbeat of what was really, really true in his life.

But, the other advice he gave me is: Exercise your back. That's the writer's disease. My dad worked out constantly to keep his back in shape.

Your father was famous for writing Westerns. This book isn't a Western, but why do you think Westerns are such an enduring form of fiction, especially now?

Well, Westerns never disappear from television. If you track back throughout the history of TV, you may find a couple of years when there were zero westerns, but not very many years in a row. And so what we have had recently isn't so much an explosion of Westerns, it's been an explosion of Taylor Sheridan. And I think the magic there is that he discovered the modern Western. Shows like Bass Reeves or 1923 are drawn more from my dad's history.

I think the focus on the modern West is interesting. He's tripped over the fact that between coasts, there's 270 million people, and they have a lifestyle that does not reflect the coastal artistic lifestyle. The wonderful thing about Yellowstone, and Taylor Sheridan's brilliant at this, is balancing the tightrope where he's giving the kind of coastal attitude enough attention to get produced, but he's also giving the middle America attitude enough attention to gather its interest.

What's your next book after this?

A biography of my dad. When I get done with it! I have been preparing this book for 30 years.

Skyring Wateris available now wherever books are sold.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 21, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 21, 2026 at 12:00 PM.