Sundance, by David Fuller (Riverhead Books)
What if the Sundance Kid didn’t perish in Bolivia with Butch Cassidy? What if an imposter is buried in Sundance’s grave? Novelist and screenwriter David Fuller writes a gripping and entertaining story based on that hypothesis. This sort of thing has been done before — Remember “The Trial of George Armstrong Custer?” And it works.
In “Sundance,” the Kid has been cooling his heels in prison in Rawlins for 13 years, under an alias, Harry Alonzo. The day “Alonzo” is released, a teenager set on revenge draws on him, and the gunman is forced to kill the boy, setting a posse on his trail.
The Sundance Kid, Harry Longbaugh, flees to New York where his wife, Etta Place, had been living. While she had written faithfully, her letters stopped abruptly, and Longbaugh is determined to find her. But he has to be careful. Etta is in danger, hiding out from Black Hand gangsters. And if that weren’t enough, Detective Charlie Siringo is on the Kid’s trail.
The world of 1913 is a different place. Motor cars are replacing horses. Electricity and indoor plumbing are common. New York is a noisy, crowded city, far different from the wide-open spaces of the West. And instead of train robbers, there are anarchists and reformers — even modern artist such as Picasso. Perhaps strangest of all, the Kid’s old gang has been glorified in dime novels and a bar called the Hole in the Wall. Sundance encounters an old friend there.
Fuller blends Wild West nostalgia with the turmoil of early 20th century New York in a well-written novel that resurrects one of the West’s most endearing outlaws.
“Sundance” begs to be made into a movie. Too bad Robert Redford is a little long in the tooth.
Over the Dam
by Stan Moore (Createspace)
Remember “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” that eco-terrorist novel of the 1970s? What those Edward Abbey characters tried to do is small potatoes compared to the environmental activists in “Over the Dam,” Denver author Stan Moore’s first novel.
Moore’s characters want to use sound waves to melt the snow on four Summit County mountains. Their goal is to cause instant flooding that will take out Dillon Dam and wash all the way down the Blue River to the Colorado, through Lake Powell and on to the Pacific. Success, of course, would mean countless deaths as well as destruction of a good part of the western U.S. Those consequences mean nothing to the three terrorists behind what they call The Plan. A bar bouncer, a computer genius and a female revolutionary, they see themselves as the saviors of the Colorado River.
The only things between them and chaos are a water lawyer and his retired park ranger friend, who happen upon one of the computer set-ups and start asking questions. Their conclusions about what the terrorists hope to accomplish are so mind-boggling that they can’t even seek the help of the sheriff or the FBI. Who would believe them?
While giant snow melters may be beyond the realm of possibility, “Over the Dam” makes you realize that monkey-wrenching could still be alive and well.
Debts and Credits
By Lyn Fraser Mainly Murder Press
Grace Edna Edge is a forensic accountant who aspires to be a romance writer, under the name Jasmine McPherson. But she’s really a noisy sleuth who decides to solve what she believes is the murder of Sally, the best friend of Grace Edna’s Aunt Arrow.
The police are skeptical, believing Sally overdosed on her medication. In fact, the lead detective appears to be more interested in Grace Edna herself than in investigating Sally’s death. But aunt and niece persevere, especially when they uncover missing meds prescribed for other senior citizens.
Created by Western Colorado author Lyn Fraser, Grace Edna is a new sleuth, and it’s likely we’ll hear more about her in the future.
