“The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion,” by Loren Estelman (Forge, 272 pages, $24.95)
Well-known for his mysteries and historical novels of the West, award-winning author Loren Estelman now offers a combination of both in “The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion” in what has to be his cleverest and funniest tale yet.
Set in 1873, the story takes place in the West. “Not just any West. It was the West of legend and suckling-memory. … A West where gamblers wore linen and pomade and dealt aces from both sides of the deck. … It was the West where prospectors, cotton-bearded and toothless, led mules over foothills riddled with shafts, Russian grand dukes shot buffalo from Pullman cars. … This was Johnny Vermillion’s West; a West that should have been, but never quite was.”
Johnny started his career in the theater at age 15. Well-born, he had failed consistently in mathematics but scored well in history and drama before he was expelled from school for theft. By the fall of 1873, the appealing young rogue has gathered a talented cast he calls the Prairie Rose Repertory Company. Its members are chosen for their ability to play any number of parts. With this versatile group in tow, Johnny descends on the little town of Tanner, Neb.
Tanner boasts a Masonic Temple, two banks and a theater called the Golden Calf. Though the larger traveling companies pass it by, Johnny sees opportunity. Even before it arrives, the local press pronounces “The Count of Monte Cristo” will be a sellout. The day after the performance, the rave review would have taken up the paper’s entire first column had the Pioneers Bank & Trust not been robbed midway through the second act.
Soon, one town after another is enjoying the talents of the players. But in every instance, while Johnny and company are taking their curtain calls and departing for the next town, the local bank and its depositors have been picked dry. The mystery goes unsolved until a Pinkerton detective is hired. A veteran known for his doggedness, he spends hours studying newspaper accounts, looking for a pattern. Once found, it is just a matter of reeling in his suspects.
Meanwhile, the Ace-in-the-Hole gang has been developing a decidedly grim view of whoever is horning into its territory, and they hatch a plan.
This is an outrageous, irresistible story filled with characters as unpredictable and appealing as the plot. Estelman has come up with what may well become a classic.
“The Raiders: Sons of Texas,” by Elmer Kelton (Forge, 288 pages, $24.95)
“The Raiders” is the second in a trilogy built around the stories of the two Lewis brothers as they struggle to take their place in Texas when it is still a province of Mexico.
It is the early 1820s and Mexico has broken from Spain and allowed Stephen Austin to establish a settlement in what years later will become Austin County. While both brothers are assigned a plot of land, Michael is filled with a ceaseless wanderlust while Andrew is drawn to hearth and home and his brother’s beautiful wife, Marie. Yet when two would-be settlers who are refused land grants by Austin start trouble, the brothers fight as one. A boy is captured by the Waco Indians and, again, they both head the group of settlers to bring him back.
But after the birth of Marie’s second child, Andrew knows he should not stay. Using the pretext of going back to Tennessee to visit his aging mother, he heads east. When he stops to see Austin, he hears rumors that renegade Americans are causing trouble and Austin asks him to look into the matter.
On the way to Nacogdoches, the town considered a gateway to Texas by American immigrants, Andrew encounters a Mexican family. Though leery of him at first, the Morenos decide to take him in. And to his dismay their daughter, Petra, has a startling resemblance to Marie.
In true Kelton style, “The Raiders” is rich in historical details about early Texas. The plot is well-paced and suitably complex. But this is also Andrew’s story. And we come to know a sensitive, brave man plagued by his hopeless love for his brother’s wife and desperate to find a way out. Unfortunately, the solution the author offers is too convenient to ring true.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes a monthly column on new regional fiction.
