An effective western thriller graced by a memorable protagonist.
An Indigenous soldier faces danger from both humans and monsters in his last mission for the United States Army in Buzan’s novel.
In 1872, a unit of U.S. troops heads to Oregon by train carrying gold meant for the U.S. Army. A Nez Perce man named Jolon Winterhawk is a cavalry soldier and Civil War veteran nearing the end of his career in the military; he’s eager to retire but feels a sense of foreboding. The train is ambushed by vigilante Ramòn Cornadez and a band of soldiers, who mean to take the gold to Mexico. The ambush is violent, and Winterhawk is the sole survivor. Meanwhile, a massive creature is attacking men in the region. Winterhawk doesn’t know about this danger—he assumes the cries he hears in the distance are wolves—but he makes a decision to follow protocol instead of fleeing the scene, meaning he must take care of the dead and, to complete his final mission as a soldier, deliver the gold to its intended destination. Two days after he sets off with the gold, a couple of U.S. Army officers, Maj. Ambrose Toomey and Cpt. Thomas Isbell, find the wreckage of the train and conclude that a traitor turned on his unit; the new arrivals don’t trust Winterhawk because he’s Indigenous and assume he’s trying to steal the gold (“What was your plan, Lieutenant Winterhawk? You made a deal with General Cornadez? You provided him with the train route in exchange for half of the money?”). Ultimately, Toomey and Isbell decide to steal the gold for themselves. Winterhawk remains determined to carry out his mission, but can he escape both his human antagonists and the monster in the woods? The novel is part western and part horror, and some of the violence is extreme. The pacing is not quite right; the author sometimes interrupts action sequences to deliver exposition or historical information. The text includes copious period detail, and a lot of this material is compelling, but as a result the book sometimes reads more like a history textbook than novel. Still, it’s a tense, exciting adventure, and Winterhawk is a charismatic and honorable hero.
An effective western thriller graced by a memorable protagonist.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781685132507
Page Count: 273
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.
Who was Shakespeare?
Move over, Earl of Oxford and Francis Bacon: There’s another contender for the true author of plays attributed to the bard of Stratford—Emilia Bassano, a clever, outspoken, educated woman who takes center stage in Picoult’s spirited novel. Of Italian heritage, from a family of court musicians, Emilia was a hidden Jew and the courtesan of a much older nobleman who vetted plays to be performed for Queen Elizabeth. She was well traveled—unlike Shakespeare, she visited Italy and Denmark, where, Picoult imagines, she may have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—and was familiar with court intrigue and English law. “Every gap in Shakespeare’s life or knowledge that has had to be explained away by scholars, she somehow fills,” Picoult writes. Encouraged by her lover, Emilia wrote plays and poetry, but 16th-century England was not ready for a female writer. Picoult interweaves Emilia’s story with that of her descendant Melina Green, an aspiring playwright, who encounters the same sexist barriers to making herself heard that Emilia faced. In alternating chapters, Picoult follows Melina’s frustrated efforts to get a play produced—a play about Emilia, who Melina is certain sold her work to Shakespeare. Melina’s play, By Any Other Name, “wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure.” Picoult creates a richly detailed portrait of daily life in Elizabethan England, from sumptuous castles to seedy hovels. Melina’s story is less vivid: Where Emilia found support from the witty Christopher Marlowe, Melina has a fashion-loving gay roommate; where Emilia faces the ravages of repeated outbreaks of plague, for Melina, Covid-19 occurs largely offstage; where Emilia has a passionate affair with the adoring Earl of Southampton, Melina’s lover is an awkward New York Times theater critic. It’s Emilia’s story, and Picoult lovingly brings her to life.
A vibrant tale of a remarkable woman.Pub Date: Aug. 20, 2024
ISBN: 9780593497210
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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