cover image Grass Kingdom

Grass Kingdom

Jory Sherman, Joy Sherman. Forge, $23.95 (412pp) ISBN 978-0-312-85360-0

Golden Spur Award-winner Sherman ( The Medicine Horn ) sets his sprawling rangeland epic on the mighty Baron ranch and lesser properties surrounding the West Texas town of Baronsville during Prohibition. When a group of rustlers led by Apache Jack Bone slaughter a prize bull and slit the throat of a young ranch hand in their rush to get purloined Baron cattle to their hideout in the untameable brasada , Matt Baron and his foreman Tom Casebolt ride into a storm to catch the criminals. Trouble is also brewing back in Baronsville: the son of a leading citizen robs a local payroll; the town's banker is being blackmailed by a rancher who wants to ruin her debt-ridden neighbors; bootleggers, Mexican-haters and the Ku Klux Klan threaten the ranchers' law-abiding ways. The relatively contemporary setting enlivens this traditional western, in which ambulances, police cars and radio broadcasts compete with buckboards, horses and stories 'round the campfire. Only a superabundance of characters (more than 140 spread over two generations) and a slightly disjointed plot line mar the fast-moving narrative spiced with salty dialogue; otherwise, it's a down-home Texas treat. (Jan.)