A beautifully composed, tragic narrative with relevance to today’s morass of chaos and bigotry.
Tickel’s haunting novel, the third installment of his Hymns of Kingdom series, is set in 1915 southern Texas during the time of the Mexican Revolution.
Thomas Asher is a complex man. He is a Texas Ranger past his prime. An injury has left him in constant pain and addicted to laudanum, the narcotic of the day. It relieves his discomfort and eases a mind still struggling with past hurt and grievances. His new assignment, requiring several days on horseback, will challenge him physically and emotionally. The Mexican Revolution has made the Rangers edgy, worried that the fighting will cross the Rio Grande into a state where the white population is a distinct minority. When a petroleum geologist spots Emilio Sanchez, a Mexican, in the desert with a horse and pack mule and casually mentions it to a deputy sheriff at his boardinghouse, he catches the lawman’s interest. That interest leads him to embellish the tale a bit, “unaware, for now, that his desire to impress a man he does not like will result in the death of a man he does not know.” The story makes its way up the chain to Capt. Render Moates of Ranger Company D in Laredo. Moates’ fateful decision to send his Rangers to track down a “contingent of Mexicans” will result in the reckless accidental shooting of Sanchez. Asher makes a life-changing decision and volunteers to stay behind to watch over the slowly dying man. Tickel has added a cosmic overlay to a basic morality play, but his linguistic skills and ability to tell a solid earthbound story should engage even the least spiritually oriented readers. When Asher begins to share his desperately needed laudanum with Sanchez, he transitions from has-been to prime mover in the battle to get justice for Sanchez. Among the cast of secondary characters, several of whom will have to face their own crises of conscience over the debacle, the most important is Beulah, Asher’s wife. Tickel unwinds the backstory of her days as a prostitute with tenderness and a not-so-gentle swipe at society’s hypocrisy.
A beautifully composed, tragic narrative with relevance to today’s morass of chaos and bigotry.Pub Date: April 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9888900-3-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Ventris & Bywater LLC
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Thoroughbreds and Virginia blue-bloods cavort, commit murder, and fall in love in Roberts's (Hidden Riches, 1994, etc.) latest romantic thriller — this one set in the world of championship horse racing. Rich, sheltered Kelsey Byden is recovering from a recent divorce when she receives a letter from her mother, Naomi, a woman she has believed dead for over 20 years. When Kelsey confronts her genteel English professor father, though, he sheepishly confesses that, no, her mother isn't dead; throughout Kelsey's childhood, she was doing time for the murder of her lover. Kelsey meets with Naomi and not only finds her quite charming, but the owner of Three Willows, one of the most splendid horse farms in Virginia. Kelsey is further intrigued when she meets Gabe Slater, a blue-eyed gambling man who owns a neighboring horse farm; when one of Gabe's horses is mated with Naomi's, nostrils flare, flanks quiver, and the romance is on. Since both Naomi and Gabe have horses entered in the Kentucky Derby, Kelsey is soon swept into the whirlwind of the Triple Crown, in spite of her family's objections to her reconciliation with the notorious Naomi. The rivalry between the two horse farms remains friendly, but other competitors — one of them is Gabe's father, a vicious alcoholic who resents his son's success — prove less scrupulous. Bodies, horse and human, start piling up, just as Kelsey decides to investigate the murky details of her mother's crime. Is it possible she was framed? The ground is thick with no-goods, including haughty patricians, disgruntled grooms, and jockeys with tragic pasts, but despite all the distractions, the identity of the true culprit behind the mayhem — past and present — remains fairly obvious. The plot lopes rather than races to the finish. Gambling metaphors abound, and sexual doings have a distinctly equine tone. But Roberts's style has a fresh, contemporary snap that gets the story past its own worst excesses.
Pub Date: June 13, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14059-X
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1995
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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