Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

7.2.2017   ‘Sawbones’ is the first of a three-book western series

Sawbones (Hachette, $14.99 paperback) by Frisco author Melissa Lenhardt is a western thriller and the first in a three-book series that debuted in April. The second, Blood Oath, hit bookshelves in May, and the third, Badlands, came out at the end of June.

When Dr. Catherine Bennett is charged with murder in New York City in 1871, she chooses to flee rather than reveal her alibi, which would ruin her fledgling career as a woman doctor. She decides to head to Texas and from there to Colorado and maybe California and resume her practice as Dr. Laura Elliston. Meanwhile, the murdered man’s family is offering a $500 reward for the capture of Dr. Bennett.

As she travels by covered wagon through the Texas frontier, an Indian attack changes everything, and Dr. Elliston has to come to grips with death, savagery, guilt, rejection, greed, and fear. She also finds friendship, respect, and love at the frontier Fort Richardson, near Jacksboro. However, as word gets out about a female frontier doctor — certainly a rarity in 1871 — Dr. Elliston’s past is in danger of catching up with her.

I zipped through the 405 pages of Sawbones in a couple of days, and it certainly whetted my appetite for novels two and three. The books flow easily from one to the next. Consider the series like reading one 1,200 page epic. Lenhardt also is the author of two murder mysteries featuring small-town police chief Jack McBride — Stillwater and The Fisher King.

Read more on her website, melissalenhardt.com.

Movie in the works: Tom Hanks reportedly will star in a film version of the award-winning western novel News of the World by Texas author Paulette Jiles. The book, a National Book Award finalist, is now available in paperback (HarperCollins, $15.99).

The story, set in 1870, revolves around two major characters — a seventy-one-year-old former soldier and printer who travels around reading “news of the world” from big-city newspapers to information-starved frontier residents, and a ten-year-old orphan who has been freed from her Indian captives. She speaks no English, resents being taken from her Kiowa family and has no memory of her own parents, killed in an Indian raid four years ago.

After a reading in Wichita Falls, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is paid fifty dollars to deliver Johanna to an aunt and uncle near San Antonio, 400 miles away. Along the way, they develop a bond as they confront one adversity after another.

Jiles is the author of another highly-acclaimed Texas frontier novel, The Color of Lightning. Read more on her website, paulettejiles.com.

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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is West Texas StoriesContact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.