The Man from the Rio Grande: A Biography of Harry Love, Leader of the California Rangers Who Tracked Down Joaquin Murrieta

The Man from the Rio Grande by William Secrest chronicles the life of Mexican War veteran and California Ranger Harry Love. Love is most known for his pursuit of the infamous bandit Joaquin Murrieta in California. The author contends that while scholars have learned more about Murrieta and have offered newer interpretations regarding him, they have often mistreated Love's role in Murrieta's fall or have ignored him altogether. He further argues that Love is an important figure whose legend extends beyond his involvement in the hunting down of Murrieta.

Although he receives greater prominence in California, the story of Harry Love, according to Secrest, really begins along the Texas-Mexico border during the Mexican War. During the war the army commissioned Love as a courier and express rider. According to Secrest, Love garnered admiration from his superiors. The army trusted Love with an important expedition along the Rio Grande in 1850, but gold soon lured Love to California.

During this time, as the book asserts, Murrieta was establishing himself as one of the most notorious bandits that California and the West would ever see. Stealing and killing at a feverish pace, Murrieta and his gang claimed whites and Chinese as their victims. Secrest states it did not take Love long to realize that there was a crime problem in California and he soon shifted his attention from gold prospecting to bringing the state's most dangerous killers to justice. Secrest argues that it is because of Murrieta that Love argues for the formation of the California Rangers—which of course led to the capture and death of Murrieta and his henchmen. The book dismisses all notions that Love and his rangers did not kill Murrieta as an attempt at legend building in the Mexican American community.

Perhaps the largest source of controversy stems from Love detaching Murrieta's head from his body. Although some during the time and in the many years to come saw this decapitation as an act of brutality, Secrest counters that it was common to use a head as means of identification. The Murrieta affair, according to the author, was the last mark of greatness for Love. Soon thereafter Love married an older woman who Secrest deemed as cold, calculating, and manipulative. His attempt at running a sawmill failed as a flood soaked the region. Love's marriage ended in a bitter divorce, and when he tried to make amends he received a severe gun wound and died from medical complications.

No book is without shortcomings and The Man from the Rio Grande is riddled with problems—the most critical of them being the lack of sources. The author relies primarily on newspaper articles—most of which are secondhand accounts of events. He seemed unable to acquire many sources from Love himself. An essential ingredient of almost any modern biography is material from the central person of the story. Moreover, he offers a mere two pages on Love's childhood and his life before the Mexican War. Limited sources on Love apparently forced Secrest to concentrate more on Murrieta than he perhaps had planned. Curiously enough, Secrest decides to close the book—a biography on Harry Love—by devoting several pages to a woman who purported herself to be Murrieta's widow.

What the book lacks in written sources pertaining to Love, it does to some extent make up for in other ways. Secrest provides the reader with many maps and illustrations—mostly of California, with a few relating to Texas. Also, Secrest appears to be quite knowledgeable of the regions that he discusses. Thus, while The Man from the Rio Grande fails to emerge Harry Love from the looming shadow of Joaquin Murrieta, it is successful in conveying an American West that is beautiful, violent, and unrefined.