TIME FOR OUTRAGE

Those who have enjoyed Mrs. Bean's previous historical narratives won't be disappointed in this fictionalized account of the notorious Lincoln Country War that devastated New Mexico in the late 1800's to the point that the frantic governor had to hustle an appeal to Washington for military aid. What Mrs. Bean has done is to trace the insidious corruption that allowed men like Major Murphy to control both police and the courts. With her strong narrative flair, the situation is viewed chiefly through the eyes of young Luke Pender, hired as a wrangler by the genteel Englishman, Henry Turnstall, whose eventual martyrdom proves the incendiary spark that touches off the war. Graphically detailed with good dialogue from the first moment when Luke becomes buddies with little Billy Bonney (later known as Billy the Kid), through the chicanery, rustling, etc., that led to the death of Turnstall and the formation of ""the Regulators,"" an aroused citizenry who were forced to take the law into their own hands and were temporarily outlawed for it. Plenty of action like gunfights at fifty different O.K. corrals and one wild West story.