Poetry Fiction
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BOOK REVIEWS Five Star Publishing POETRY Hardcover, 233 pages, $25.95 2019 Spur Awards deadline Gale.Cengage.com/FiveStar Entry deadline for the 2019 Spur JOHN G. NEIHARDT In the Flint Hills of Kansas in 1900, Awards, to be presented in various A Cycle of the West: Bison Classic Jocelyn Belle Royal needs a job. Her categories for original works first Annotated Edition mother died when she was young, her published in 2018, is Bison Books father recently passed away, and she just January 15. Trade paperback, 749 pages, $44.95 lost the farm she had once saved. Find- All material NebraskaPress.unl.edu ing herself destitute and determined must be received The first copyright of material in A to buy back the farm, she joins a mule by that date to be Cycle of the West was issued in 1915. drive. Jocelyn knows how to manage considered. More than 100 years later, John G. mules. When she talks, they listen. She For entry forms and rules, log on Neihardt’s weighty tome still beckons is brave, bold, resourceful and all the to WesternWriters.org/2019-WWA- readers. A new introduction and 148 good kinds of stubborn. When Wit Spur-Awards-contest.pdf. pages of annotations explain and inter- Hanley, her boss, disappears and leaves Winners and finalists will be pret the work. The rhymed couplets and her alone with the mules, she finds announced in March. Awards will liberal use of end-of-line enjambment herself in repeated danger. She finds be presented during the WWA lead readers on to a pleasurable read- strength she didn’t know she had but convention in Tucson, Arizona, June ing experience. It is probable that this knew she’d need. Irene Bennett Brown’s 19-22. remarkable piece of American literature writing is kind, generous, suspenseful will continue attracting admirers for a and adventurous. I really enjoyed her SCOTT HARRIS long while and may even appear in dif- novel. Battle on the Plateau ferent forms, such as with a recent mo- – Milana Marsenich Dusty Saddle Publishing tion picture The Revenant. This classic Paperback, 238 pages, $8.99 ANDREW J. FENADY ScottHarrisWest.com book fits well on the shelf of any lover The Christmas Trespassers of the literary West. Taking characters from his previous Pinnacle books, Scott Harris places them in Ari- – Lynn Bueling Mass-market paperback, 374 pages, $7.99 KensingtonBooks.com zona’s Grand Canyon. While the story chugs along nicely, readers new to these Originally released as The Runaways characters are confused. Brock Clem- FICTION by Berkley Books in 1999, Owen mons, with Sophie and Huck, leave Dry Wister Award recipient Andrew J. Fe- Springs, venture to the Grand Canyon, PETER BRANDVOLD nady’s novel has been reissued under a meet up with Paiutes who eventually Black Trails and Bloody Murder: Rogue new title with three bonus short stories befriend them. A battle at novel’s end Lawman: A Gideon Hawk Western Duo told by Fenady’s “Wise Old Man of sets the tone for a sequel, which accord- Five Star Publishing the West.” The larger-than-life creator ing to the author, is in progress. Confu- Hardcover, 309 pages, $25.95 of the TV series The Rebel and screen- Gale.Cengage.com/FiveStar sion in tenses and first/third person writer/producer of the box-office hit makes the novel seem “amateurish,” The prolific writer of hard-edged, Chisum tells a larger-than-life story which it isn’t, and typographical errors action-packed, R-rated pulp fiction is about three runaways from an orphan- take away from the writing. at it again with two novellas involving age who take refuge on Shad Parker’s – Melody Groves fast-shooting Gideon Hawk. In Under- land in post-Civil War Texas – and taker’s Friend, Hawk gives Cedar Bend’s Parker is a crotchety old Scrooge who’s BONNIE HOBBS undertaker plenty of business and gives handy with a rifle. Instead of Jacob So Wild the Wind plenty of business to the marshal’s wife. Marley’s ghost, Parker has to deal with Five Star Publishing In Bloody Canaan, Hawk gives Idaho a bank-robbing gang. OK, so this isn’t Hardcover, 290 pages, $25.95 Gale.Cengage.com/FiveStar outlaw Quentin Burnett a hard time Dickens or It’s a Wonderful Life, but when not carrying on with Saradee if you want to escape into a 1950s- Fleeing the aftermath of the Civil Jones, Hawk’s sometimes lover, some- style Western told by a one-of-a-kind War, Alida, a beautiful Southern belle, times rival. You get the general idea. storyteller, here’s the perfect stocking- convinces her sister and brother-in- law into going along with her and her IRENE BENNETT BROWN stuffer. Miss Royal’s Mules – Johnny D. Boggs young son to Mexico to begin a new life. They shipwreck off the coast of DECEMBER 2018 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 23 Texas and only Alida survives. She multilayers, Rosary Without Beads puts problems of immigration, white suprema- is rescued by an undercover Union the reader in the middle of the Lincoln cists and much more. She also manages to soldier, sent to ferret out a possible nest County War and rural life in southern educate on Jewish culture. With a touch of of Southern sympathizers bent on an New Mexico where a farmer/rancher is romance, this well-rounded story is a fine uprising. Together, they must rescue a indebted to a merciless landowner. Be addition to your reading list. little boy from a father whose mind has sure to allow plenty of reading time – – Carol Crigger become unhinged. Although set in a this novel is hard to put down. CRAIG JOHNSON Southwestern state during Reconstruc- – Melody Groves Depth of Winter tion, romance rules in this novel that JANE ISENBERG Viking contains a definite Gothic feel. Murder in the Melting Pot Hardcover, 287 pages, $28 – Vicky J. Rose PenguinRandomHouse.com Oconee Spirit Press penguinrandomhouse.com DIANA HOLGUÍN-BALOGH Trade Paperback, 207 pages, $14.95 Rosary Without Beads OconeeSpirit.com Cady, Walt Longmire’s daughter, has Five Star Publishing Accused of committing a crime of been taken by Walt’s arch enemy, Tomás Hardcover, 310 pages, $25.95 which she is innocent, Miranda Breitner Bidarte, leader of one of Mexico’s most Gale.Cengage.com/FiveStar moves, 20 years later, to the Yakima dangerous cartels. With Cady hidden away A gem in the desert! Rosary Without Valley and starts a bed and breakfast. somewhere in Mexico and soon to go on Beads is an on-the-edge-of-your-seat sort All goes well until one of the crew the auction block, Walt follows. He’s deter- of novel. Teenager Ambrosia Salazar, certifying the grape harvest as kosher is mined to rescue her as he dodges the U.S. trapped in a traditional 1880s world murdered. With crooked cops and other border patrol, FBI, Mexican authorities where distinct lines are drawn between forces plaguing the valley, Miranda needs and everyone else who is dead set against women’s and men’s roles, is tormented to step in before her B&B goes broke. him. This is an extremely violent novel. by the desire to be her own person, the Here’s a good mystery set in the major Lacking Walt’s usual cast of backup shameful demise of her sister, the care grape-growing area of Washington. characters, new ones abound. Some are of a retarded sister, death of her mother Strong characters people the story, each as strong and loyal as Henry and Vic, but and assumed marriage to a neighboring with diverse backgrounds. The book Walt has never been up against so many boy. When William Bonney chances deals with much more than murder, truly evil forces all at once. A Longmire by, she falls for him – hard. Written in however. Jane Isenberg touches on the book is always good. Perfect pacing, per- 24 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2018 ESTERN MUSIC fect dialogue, perfect characterization. I do think Walt is get- W ting a bit old for this kind of derring-do, considering the many times he has taken wounds that would kill the average man. – Carol Crigger MARK EDWARD LANGLEY TOM RUSSELL Path of the Dead: An Arthur Nakai Mystery Folk Hotel Blackstone Publishers Frontera Records, $15.99 Hardcover, 207 pages, $24.99 FrontereaRecords.com BlackstonePublishing.com In 2011, Tom Russell and Paul Zar- Arthur Nakai, an ex-Marine whose job was to hunt smug- zyski won a Spur Award for their song glers of both drugs and humans on the Mexican border, “Heart of a Bucking Horse.” That was has retired to a quiet life. Or so he thinks. When his wife on Russell’s Cowboy’d All to Hell CD, Sharon, a TV reporter, is kidnapped by a serial killer, he’ll which also included “Navajo Rug,” in my opinion a contem- have to draw on all his former skills to save her. A chase from porary Western classic, penned by Russell and Ian Tyson; and New Mexico to Montana and the Canadian border is a race Russell’s spurs- and quirt-fueled “Tonight We Ride.” against time, the ticking clock upping already tense action. Russell’s cowboy music credentials are solid. But he’s a sto- Along the way, Arthur relies on friends and his wolf-dog ryteller who knows no boundaries, as testified to by this 14-cut and the end will leave you breathless. The book sustains a CD that takes us from New York City to high level of page-turning suspense.