THE UNREDEEMED

In this second volume of a historical fiction trilogy (following Comanche Captive, 2020), Conhaim returns to protagonist Scott Renald, a former “redeemer” who retired after a successful career of returning White settlers captured by Native American tribes to their families. Renald is persuaded to come out of retirement to seek out Karl Hermann, the teenage son of German immigrants who chose to stay with the Apaches when the redeemer rescued his younger brother several years earlier. Renald is recruited by Sgt. Tops Chance, a Black man who knows that the Army will not mount an expedition to search for a young Black girl recently taken captive. Chance hopes that Renald will find her in the course of searching for Hermann, now known as Endah. Renald is unwillingly accompanied by Chivatá, a female Apache warrior, as he discovers that Endah has left his band due to an escalating blood feud with members of another group. Chivatá pursues her own agenda as Renald looks for Endah, and she ends up leading the Black soldiers into a deadly stretch of desert with no access to water. Renald captures Endah, but he allows the boy to make his own decision about his fate. Conhaim is a strong writer, and he brings both the desert setting and the battle scenes to life with economic but evocative phrasing (“A plainsman without Renald’s way with a Winchester would’ve been saying his prayers just about now”). The novel makes a solid attempt to bring the Black experience into a traditional Western, and it largely succeeds. Unfortunately, the Black child captive, who is never involved in the story’s action, feels more like a plot device than a character. While players from Comanche Captive appear in the book, mainly in cameo roles, the sequel stands alone, and new readers will have no trouble following the plot. In an afterword, the author shares details from his research and provides further information about the historical figures who inspired the tale’s characters.