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Publisher:
Forge (Tom Doherty) |
Release
Date: September 2002 |
ISBN:
0765304651 |
Awards:
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Format
Reviewed: Hardback |
Buy
it at Amazon US
|| UK |
Read
an Excerpt |
Genre:
Historical Crime (1878 Kansas) |
Reviewed:
2003 |
Reviewer:
Rachel A Hyde |
Reviewer
Notes: |
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Solomon
Spring
By Michelle
Black
Ten years
on from the momentous events detailed in An Uncommon Enemy
(also reviewed on this site) Eden Murdoch has been living with the
Cheyenne shaman she loves, but he has recently died. Mourning him
by the mystic Solomon Spring, she is horrified to find that this
sacred site is to be turned into a tourist attraction, selling cure-all
bottled water. Native Americans will not be allowed to visit this
spa, and naturally Eden sees red and protests. The enemies she has
made are increased when her former abusive husband Lawrence comes
back looking for her, and is promptly found dead. With a custody
battle raging over the teenage son she thought was dead fourteen
years ago, and a nine-year old daughter who is being bullied at
school for her "Indian" ways, things can only get worse
when Eden is thrown into jail. But Brad Randall is in town with
problems of his own, so maybe he can save her
Just like its precursor, this is another
one of those mold-breaking books that I can imagine a reading group
tackling with gusto. Eden and Brad make strong leads who have suffered
much, but are all the tougher for it, and still have their humanity
intact. Unlike An Uncommon Enemy, this is a whodunit, and
this adds a new dimension to the tale and ought to bring it even
wider appeal, especially as it is lacking any of the coziness many
books in this genre display. Read it for its tactile portraits of
Western life, gritty characters and a multifaceted plot. There is
perhaps a tendency to delineate characters as either being good
or bad, and a few more gray ones in between would have made a superior
book even better. Heaven forbid that the third volume degenerates
into one of those cozy husband-and-wife team whodunits; not that
there aren't many fine examples of this type around, but the essential
magic of this series is that it paints such an uncompromising picture
of how life must have been in those times. Another one to read and
savor for the treat that it is.
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