The Book of Murdock, by Loren Estleman, $24.99.
In “The Book of Murdock,” author Loren Estleman once again uses Page Murdock, a middle- aged gunman who assumes the guise of a man of the cloth, as the center of another first-rate Western tale.
Over the years, Murdock has posed as everything from a cowhand to a saloonkeeper and a Comanche slave. But when a gang of bandits terrorize the town, Murdock comes up with the idea that by donning the garb of a minister he might restore order.
Too late, he learns the two men he is after have robbed two banks, an Overland stage and two trains in just the past six months.
Yet Murdock is not about to give up, and, taking on the guise of priest, he quickly learns how to fake his way into being believed. Unfortunately, however, he also meets up with a woman of questionable repute from his past, and the plot thickens.
Written in his usual intimate yet relaxed style, Estleman gives readers another well-researched story and a thoroughly good read.
Indian Country Noir, edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez, $15.95. The latest in the series of original anthologies launched by the publisher in 2004, “Indian Country Noir” is a four-part collection of 14 stories, written by Indians and non-Indians and set in different sections of the country.
By way of introduction, editors Cortez and Martinez remind readers that Indian Country encompasses territory both familiar and unknown. And with the circle representing the endless connection to the present, it also the natural world.
Among the intriguing stories, Jean Rae Baxter’s “Helper” explores relationships between whites and Indians through the eyes and heart of an Indian raised in a boarding school for Native Americans where some children were brought in chains and lived a life no child should have to endure, bad enough to drive boys to join the Army in wartime.
In “On Drowning Pond,” author A.A. HedgeCoke deftly captures the desperate lives of those who have drifted into the “drowning way” of drunks.
A busy city is the setting for Gerard Hoarner’s story, “Dead Medicine Snake Woman,” which tells of a man’s desperate search for his “heart-beat woman” and a tragic turn of events.
“” opens as federal agent watches the man she is after speed- shop through a Safeway supermarket.
Whatever the case, each situation is built around individuals doomed by their heritage.
Ultimately, each story gives readers a disturbingly insightful and relatively unknown view of the lives of thousands of fellow citizens all but invisible to mainstream America.
Sybil Downing is a Boulder novelist who writes regularly about new regional fiction.
