A finely wrought Western mystery by a true master of the form.
In Schopen’s latest neo-Western, an ex-lawman finds his life upended by the discovery of a missing plane.
Fats Rangle used to be a deputy sheriff in Pinenut County, but those days are behind him. The former cop now operates Cherry Creek Stables and Excursions with his brother on the family’s ranch in the Nevada desert, which offers such activities as horseback riding, camping, and fishing parties. Fats laments the many changes that have come to his native valley, bringing more development, more people, and a lowering water table that’s causing vegetation to dry up. While riding one evening in the nearby mountains, he comes across the wreckage of a small single-engine plane that went missing two years ago. There are two bodies inside, mummified by the elements, but nothing of obvious value: “More interesting to Fats was the track in the snow…that zigzagged up to the wreckage. Someone had been here, he guessed a month or so ago. He could also guess who. And why.” Fats purposely tramples over the original tracks, and later, when he reports the crash to his former colleague, Sheriff Dale Zahn, he doesn’t mention that someone else had been there. It turns out that Fats’ cousin Strutter Martin has gone missing, and Fats suspects that his disappearance and the tracks outside the plane are related—especially after he learns of a missing briefcase full of cash that should have been on the plane. Fats launches a private investigation into the whereabouts of Strutter and the briefcase, and he soon stumbles upon a much larger scheme involving political corruption, a Las Vegas dancer, and water rights. The stakes of this game are high, and Fats will have to play his hand carefully if he doesn’t want to end up dead.
Over the course of this novel, Schopen shows himself to be a skilled poet of the Western landscape, and readers will find that his prose is as lean and tough as old leather: “The wind soughed. A jay fussed. Near the corral, a young bay mare cropped the sparse mountain foliage. Beside the water tank stood Fats Rangle, squat, still.” The hinterlands between the desert and the city provide a stark stage for this morality tale, and it’s one in which nature, in all its danger and delicacy, is a force that must always be reckoned with. The novel combines clearly recognizable Western elements with those of hardboiled detective fiction, and the laconic, short-tempered Fats exemplifies the antiheroic archetypes of both genres. The protagonist’s search for answers quickly becomes a broader exploration of himself and his history—particularly the series of events that caused him to leave the sheriff’s office for good; the story also encompasses the evolving realities of his beloved, but no longer remote, valley homeland. Is there still a place in the West for men such as Fats? Readers will hope so, as long as there are talents like Schopen to write about them.
A finely wrought Western mystery by a true master of the form.Pub Date: Aug. 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781647791186
Page Count: 223
Publisher: University of Nevada Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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