A Western tale packed with intriguing historical issues but lacking fully developed characters.
This third installment of a series revives Marshal Angus Esperraza for another eventful ride, this time joining a research expedition retracing the forced relocation of the Navajo.
Angus has no plans for the day in Chama, New Mexico, beyond studying a map, but when a telegraph comes in telling him about a new assignment, he jumps into action. Or rather, first he has a chat with his gunsmith wife, Jill, which sets the tone for this Western, full of long discussions and thoughtful interactions in 1888. In fact, lengthy talks are the point of Angus’ latest mission. He is accompanying a Smithsonian researcher and writer, a military man, and a Navajo woman along the path used by the Army when the Navajo were relocated to Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. Naturally, tensions flare, and a series of crimes—a young guide shot and killed, a stagecoach brake sabotaged, etc.—raises the possibility that someone doesn’t want this research concluded. While this seems like a classic Western setup—complete with a stagecoach full of diverse characters—the focus isn’t on typical action scenes, but on more cerebral issues of history. At times that emphasis on dialogue leads to some didacticism, and not just from the Smithsonian’s researcher: for instance, the man described as “an experienced teamster” goes on to note regional differences in what the driver is called—“a whip back East, or a teamster out West.” The Navajo woman imparts a history lesson, asking, “Did you also know that it was a Mexican, a man called Nakhayazih, who established the first trading post at Chinle in 1882?” There are some engrossing tidbits about the past in Stuart’s (Anatomy of a Confession, 2016, etc.) work, and some impressive conversations about the violent Long Walk of the Navajo. But with many in the cast sounding more alike than different, and with much of the book being taken up by those exchanges, readers may end up educated about the bloody history of the Southwest, but not necessarily engaged by these characters.
A Western tale packed with intriguing historical issues but lacking fully developed characters.Pub Date: March 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9863441-4-5
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Gleason & Wall Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 29, 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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