Bowen's 11th distaff western delivers a lingering sadness for a fascinating era that, for all its monstrous cruelties, ended...
The fourth in the madcap, picaresque series about Wild West rapscallion Luther "Yellowstone" Kelly has the wily scout ricocheting among rival paleontologists, a homicidal Indian, and an amorous tough-gal artist.
Having lost his Indian bride in Kelly Blue (1991), Kelly joins drunken spectators at the 1869 driving of the golden spike linking the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. He has nothing more on his mind than a few hours of soused oblivion in Pignuts's saloon when the historical paleontologist Jonathon Cope blows in and asks whether Kelly has heard of Charles Darwin. "A British feller pissed all over the Bible," Kelly replies. That's enough to get him hired to take the fabulously wealthy Cope through the wilds of Wyoming in search of the fossil of Eohippus, or Dawn Horse, the mustang's prehistoric three-toed ancestor. Speed is of the essence, Cope insists, because his dreaded rival Othniel Marsh is also hunting. What Cope doesn't know is that his illustrator, the beautiful, wealthy, sophisticated, and miraculously sharpshooting Alys de Bonneterre (she puts bullet holes in Pignuts's ears when he tries to sell her a box of miscellaneous bones as the last remains of her dead brother), wants to beat both Cope and Marsh at their own game. Alys falls hard for Kelly, who finds himself cleaned up, well-clothed, married and riding back east on Alys's private rail car, pursued by Blue Fox, a Dartmouth-educated Cheyenne who intends to torture and kill as many white men as possible. Bowen's herky-jerky plot drags the reluctant Kelly to encounters with other historical figures, such as Red Cloud, Washakie, Buffalo Bill Cody, Brigham Young, and Ulysses S. Grant, against a coldly beautiful landscape where violence and death occur without warning.
Bowen's 11th distaff western delivers a lingering sadness for a fascinating era that, for all its monstrous cruelties, ended much too soon.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-24106-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Minotaur
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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