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The Stable - Reviews - Set One

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Review: Tanner on Ice by Lawrence Block 10/6/98

Review: Powder River by Gary McCarthy 10/4/98

Review: Wild River by Gary McCarthy 10/4/98

Review: Rattlesnake Crossing by J. A. Jance 9/9/98

Review: The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman 9/6/98

Review: Border Life by Elizabeth A. Perkins 8/8/98

The Stable - Review: Border Life by Elizabeth A. Perkins

Border Life, subtitled: Experience and Memory in the Revolutionary Ohio Valley, provides a cultural analysis based on the settler interviews of John Dabney Shane, a Presbyterian minister with a fine ear for detail and a strong love for recording history by listening to those who helped make it. The interviews were done in the 1840s and faithfully written by Shane. Elizabeth Perkins uses an in-depth analysis of these interviews to seek a better understanding of live in the Ohio Valley, especially during the earliest settlement of what became the state of Kentucky. (I would have liked to have seen more interview details from Ohio settlers.) Most of the settlers interviewed were children or still young adults when the arrived in the Ohio Valley in the 1775 to 1795 period, being recalled in their older years. Perkins uses techniques from both anthopology and enthnography to bring understanding of events, often recalled somewhat differently by the actual settlers themselves compared to the recorded history of the same events and occassions written by writers from the eastern seaboard and even Europe.

I found the contents of the book extremely useful and interesting. I was especially impressed by the technical detail and breadth of knowledge of cultural analysis used in the presentation. However, I was disappointed (based on expectations alone) that there was not a more coherent story by time and place based on the settler interviews. That would be another book, of course, and it could be nicely done, I believe, from the research and interpretation provided by Perkins. The cultural analysis approach, of course, was very illuminating making excellent use of brief excerpts and interpretations of settler interviews with respect to the various issues examined, such as kinship, political affairs, militia activity, settlement life, linear time and indian "good time" and "bad times," for example.

Appendix listings, Notes, Bibiliography and Index occupy pages 177-253. Appendix A lists the individual Shane interviews used in the text. The Shane interview notebooks are divided among three repositories: The Draper Manuscripts of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, and the John Day Caldwell Papers at the Cincinnati Historical Society. Apendix B does include a summary of one complete interview as a brief illustration of style and content. The Notes section is very detailed and complete as is the Bibliography.

Bill Smith, August 8, 1998 Click to Order Now

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The Stable - Review: The First Eagle by Tony Hillerman

First, it is great to have the opportunity to read another Tony Hillerman novel, continuing the sagas of Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Chee, now an Acting Lt. of the Navajo Tribal Police, believes he has caught a Hopi eagle poacher red-handed in the death of a fellow Navajo Tribal Police officer. Leaphorn, now retired from the Navajo Tribal Police, is trying to locate a missing scientist, Cathy Pollard, for her elderly aunt. The young lady has disappeared on the same day in the same vicitiy as the murder of the police officer. Leaphorn has never believed in coincidences, of course. As he seeks Pollard, he is pleased to find that his new friend, Northern Arizona University professor Louisa Bourebonette, is both very interested and very helpful in his search. Jim Chee, on the other hand, as he checks out the eagle poacher's story, finds both that he may not have his killer as he thought, and, he must deal with Janet Pete, the defense attorney for the accused, and, the former love of Chee's life. Details of Hopi religious ceremonies, bubonic plague and hantevirus scientific research are interwoven with frequent trips across the vast reservation by our investigators to provide the expected details which lead to the ultimiate truths sought in their official capacities. Each also struggles with new feelings and situations in their respective personal lives, which are certainly not resolved in this novel.

This is probably not one of the best novels by Tony Hillerman, but, it is still great to have another authentic one added to the Hillerman book shelf, in the Book Barn.

Bill Smith, September 6, 1998 Click to Order Now

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The Stable - Review: Rattlesnake Crossing by J. A. Jance

This is the sixth in the Joanna Brady Mystery Series, and another well crafted Jance story of the widowed Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County, Arizona. Location details of realistic without being overpowering. Daughter Jenny is off in Enid, Oklahoma, with her paternal grandparents, at a Brady family reunion, and Joanna's mother, Eleanor, is on an Alaska honeymoon with the County Medical Examiner. In his absence, Joanna and her deputies get to deal with Dr. Fran Daly of the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office to handle a series of murders in a matter of a few days, ranging from a gun shop owner to the "oleander lady," a student scientist visiting ranches in the area. Another victim is a missing resident of Rattlesnake Crossing, a new age retreat for the well-heeled who want to pretend they are Apache indians - in air-conditioned teepees! Two of the victims are found on the Triple C Ranch, owned by a gentleman with no need for the Federal government, so Joanna is constantly concerned about avoiding a Ruby Ridge type situation.

While the murders were brutal and violent, I felt the detail of description was unneccesarily gratuitous - and out of character for this particular series. The hallmark of this series, to date, has been the inner turmoil of the single mother in a high profile "typically male" job trying to raise a young daughter in relatively "normal" family life. Also, Joanna's childhood friend, Marianne, was introduced a couple books back as the local United Methodist Church minister, with personal and family problems of her own. This story line is continued with particularly difficult times for both Joanna and for Marianne and her family. Butch Dixon spends practically the whole book in Bisbee, is there for Joanna, even when she didn't think she needed support, and becomes more than just "a friend." More potential fodder for the local nosey newspaper columnist, Marliss Shackleford, whose purpose in life seems to be to frustrate Joanna at the most inopportune times.

If you are looking for a police procedural, this is probably not the book for you, although that element of the story is well done, in my opinion. If, however, you like the intrapersonal and interpersonal stories interwoven with an exciting serial killer identification and search adventure, then I would really expect you to like this novel as much as I did. I do tend to like continuing sagas where you get to know the characters well and can watch them grow and change over the course of several, or many, books. There are quite a few of them recommended at this site. Enjoy!

Bill Smith, September 6, 1998 Click to Order Now

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The Stable - Review: Wild River by Gary McCarthy

This is a first paperback edition of an earlier book by Gary McCarthy. Powder River, see next review, is the same, and, is a continuation of the same story line and characters. As a fan of Gary McCarthy writing, I enjoyed both books, although they are each very long. I read the first on a flight to France and the second on the return flight! 10-11 hours each way!

Wind River begins in Utah a few years before the transcontinental railroad arrives. To sisters fall under the influence of a polygamist community leader in rural Utah. We follow the experiences of these two women through both books over a couple of decades as the western frontier moves from wild and untamed to some semblance of civilization. Rebecca, the older of the two, has two unsuccessful marriage experiences but discovers a love for practicing medicine from her second husband, a military physician at Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming. On her own, she sets up a medical practice in a mining town not far from where her younger sister, Katie, pursues her dream of raising sheep in the Wind River valley. A former Pony Express rider, the son of the polygamist and former Texas rancher moved to Wyoming are in and out of the lives of the sisters as they face the trials and tribulations of live on the frontier.

Along the way, Katie learns the sheep raising business from the Basques. Readers also learn the business in great detail as well. The great detail in the story will be unpleasant for some, fascinating to others. The risks as well as the rewards of building a sheep empire in Wyoming are spelled out over a number of seasons, including problems with weather, sheep-haters, Indians, and the separation from other people. Rebecca is haunted by her past, yearns for "a real medical education," but, nevertheless, provides a great service to her clientele, including delivery of her sister's baby, Christopher. This book ends as Rebecca is involved in successfully getting the sufferage vote for women in Wyoming but fails to win her court case against the polygamist in a Utah court. (Story continues in Powder River - see next review, below)


Bill Smith, October 4, 1998 Click to Order Now

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The Stable - Review: Powder River by Gary McCarthy

This is a first paperback edition of an earlier book by Gary McCarthy. Wild River, see previous review, above, is the same, and, is the beginning of the same story line and characters (although this book can be read alone, of course - background is picked up along the way). As a fan of Gary McCarthy writing, I enjoyed both books, although they are each very long. I read the first on a flight to France and the second on the return flight! 10-11 hours each way!

As this book begins, Rebecca and her second husband, Dr. Devlin Woodson II, are reconciled based on her agreement to go back east to his home in Washington, D.C., and her belief that he will support her entrance into medical school - although no woman has been allowed to do so in America to that date. His father, a highly respected medical school professor and member of high society in Washington, is strongly opposed to her career ideas, of course, preferring for his son and wife to follow in his image of Washington society. Rebecca agrees to support Devlin in his pursuit of a wealthy medical practice on the assumption he will later support her entrance into medical school. She does make a hit in high society as a speaker about "the western woman" and her role in the sufferage movement. Yet, she must create a crisis to receive serious attention as a possible medical student.

Interspersed with Rebecca's Washington experiences are regular updates on the sheep ranch experiences of Katie and her son, Christopher, in the Wind River valley of southwestern Wyoming. A young Irishman, Michael Killeen, a former surveyor with the Union Pacific as it laid railroad tracks across Wyoming, is introduced a worker on the sheep ranch for Katie. He is in love with Katie, but she has feelings only for her sheep and her son. Her sheep ranch enterprise is continuing to expand. It grows even faster when she begins working with an eastern fried of Rebecca's, the very wealthy John Betterman, son of a railroad baron. John loves the west, but, is tied to the east. He also loves Katie, but, not enough to leave his eastern responsibilities.

Overcoming great difficulties, Rebecca does receive her medical degree and moves to Cheyenne, Wyoming to establish a medical practice after Devlin decides to become a cattleman there. Again, Gary McCarthy gives us great detail about the rise, and eventual failures of, the cattle industry of Chyenne. Devlin returns to his drinking, especially at the Cheyenne Club, where he makes boasts he cannot possibly live up to. Rebecca and Katie both end with personal and professional success. Rebecca finds hers in the Powder River area, which is really only mentioned very late in the book.

As noted, key historical events are woven into detailed portrayals of sheep and cattle raising in Wyoming, along with the roles of women, ranchers, miners and the medical profession. The vote and polygamy are key issues also examined in the context of the ongoing story of the two sisters. Gary McCarthy makes the long read worth the effort.


Bill Smith, October 4, 1998 Click to order now

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The Stable - Review: Tanner on Ice by Lawrence Block

This book is a unique experience even for a Lawrence Block fan! I began reading Block about ten years ago, including the Evan Tanner books. However, I had forgotten that the Tanner books were actually 25 years old! The story of the intervening years is very creative and only a writer of Block's skills could pull it off so well, I believe.

The Burma part of the story is really not my "cup of tea," but, I do enjoy the Block style enough to get through it - and "enjoy" it. It is really a unique book, in so many ways.

Bill Smith, October 4, 1998 Click to order now

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Page last updated October 6, 1998.
Address comments to William L. Smith, Web Page Manager for Bill's Book Barn.