Friday Forgotten Books, January 5, 2018

                                   Todd Mason will host FFB next Friday. 

From the archives of Ron Scheer

Kent Meyers, The Work of Wolves 

A slender plot-line for its 400+ pages, this novel set in the reservation and ranchland of central South Dakota glows with intensity at each turn. While your desire to know what happens next presses you onward, you pause along with the author to reflect on the thoughts and feelings of the characters who are pulled into the flow of events that begins with the purchase of a horse and leads inevitably to the burning of a house.

There are humor, suspense, family drama, surprises, ironies of all kinds, a smoldering romance, conflicts, animosity, suspense, farce, triumphs and sorrows in Meyers' novel. And all is woven around a continuing meditation on moral complexity and finally the great difficulty of doing the right thing when there are deep emotions, conflicting points of view, and only degrees of violence and loss to choose from.

The four young men at the center of this story, two Indians, a cowboy, and a German exchange student, each bears a legacy of history that pulls them together in the single effort to rescue three horses. Meyers makes them come to life vividly through action, thought, and dialogue. Around them is another dozen or so characters, just as carefully drawn and revealed through illuminating flashes of incident. And as in the author's other work (Light in the Crossing, The River Warren), there is the continuing presence of the landscape and the seasons, as summer turns to autumn and snow-driven winter.

Especially interesting is the characterization of the young cowboy, whose ancestry in American literature dates back to Owen Wister's Virginian. Here is that same set of values, courage, pure-heartedness, and self-containment, 100 years later, set in conflict with a cunning villain. It is moving to learn what has become of him.

Yvette Banek, Year End Reading Roundup
Les Blatt, THE CASE OF THE LATE PIG, Margery Allingham
Elgin Bleecker, ACT OF FEAR, Michael Collins
Brian Busby, TEN FORGOTTEN BOOKS
David Cranmer, A IS FOR ALIBI, Sue Grafton
Martin Edwards, DEATH AT BREAKFAST, John Rhode
Richard Horton, THE SOCIAL SECRETARY, David Graham Philips
Jerry House, DALLAS, Will F. Jenkins
George Kelley, SLAYERS AND VAMPIRES,  Edward Gross and Mark A Altman
Margot Kinberg, THE RIGHT SIDE, Spencer Quinn
B.V. Lawson, UNCLE ABNER, MASTER OF MYSTERIES, Melville Davisson Post
Evan Lewis, Forgotten Books and Stories of 2017
Steve Lewis, THE BODY LOOKS FAMILIAR, Richard Wormser
Brian Lindenmuth, Remembering Jack Schaefer
Todd Mason, THE SUPERNATURAL IN FICTION edited by Leo P. Kelley; THE ILLUSTRATED BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION LISTS by Mike Ashley 
J.F. Norris, TRAGEDY AT BEECHCROFT, A Fielding
Matt Paust, TURN RIGHT AT MACHU PICCHU Mark Adams
James Reasoner, AVALANCHE, E.S.  Dellinger
Gerard Saylor, STAR WARS: THE PERFECT WEAPON, Delilah Dawson
Kerrie Smith, IN THE DARK, Chris Patchell
Kevin Tipple,  Strange World: A Biff Bam Pop Short Story Anthology
TomCat, THE IRON CHARIOT, Stein Riverton
TracyK, THE RENEWABLE VIRGIN, Barbara Paul