An intriguing but flawed debut Western.
A Pinkerton detective doggedly pursues an old enemy in Fetter’s debut historical novella.
In 1882, a train is hauling a massive shipment of bank notes and gold from San Francisco to Tucson, Arizona. Someone tips off the outlaw Barksdale Gang, who intercept the delivery. But they didn’t anticipate running into Pinkerton agent Henry Wheeler, who’s traveling undercover as a mild-mannered Bible salesman. Wheeler, a Confederate Civil War veteran, served in the same unit as the gang’s leader, Kirby Barksdale, and his little brother, Danny; together, they raided Union supply trains until Kirby’s betrayal resulted in Wheeler’s injury and capture. The war is long over now, but for Wheeler, old wounds haven’t healed, and he aims to bring Kirby to justice. However, things don’t go as planned, and a bloody clash results in the deaths of gang members and railroad employees. Kirby escapes with most of the cash, while Wheeler locks Danny up in a Tucson jail, overseen by a morally dubious deputy. Wheeler makes plans to intercept Kirby and recover the funds, and Danny’s incarceration becomes complicated when a clever saloon worker gets involved in an attempt to free him. The book concludes with an unrelated short story, set decades later, about a grifter trying to steal an isolated prospector’s hidden gold. Fetter’s readable style evocatively captures the story’s hardscrabble, desolate environment. Even the most loathsome characters retain some shred of humanity, as exemplified by cruel Kirby’s genuine love for his brother. However, there are some moments of awkward prose (“The young outlaw averted the salesman’s gaze”), and the book’s tendency toward lengthy exposition robs some potentially powerful moments of their impact, giving the brief narrative a disjointed and compressed quality. Characters with a notable Western twang to their speech get the best dialogue; the more buttoned-up characters come off as less realistic.
An intriguing but flawed debut Western.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9997326-0-1
Page Count: 184
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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