cover image The Baron Range

The Baron Range

Jory Sherman. Forge, $23.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-312-86349-4

A complex tale of murder, revenge and retribution set in the Rio Grande Valley, this third novel in Spur winner Sherman's Grass Kingdom trilogy (after The Barons of Texas) continues to chronicle the Baron family's settlement of the Texas frontier in the early 1800s. Tough pioneer Martin Baron owns the Box B Ranch, one million acres of cattle country beset by internal and external threats. Baron's son, Anson, not yet a man but feeling like one, resents his father's brusque treatment, and the father-son rivalry is hot and tense. Meanwhile, Caroline, Martin's long-suffering wife, hides a terrible secret that will eventually shatter her family and drive her husband away, causing him to make a terrible mistake--mistreating his most loyal friend. With Martin gone, Anson must take over the ranch, fighting horse thieves, bandits, Apaches and the other trail dangers of his first cattle drive. Anson's most deadly challenge, however, comes from a crazed Mexican whose warped sense of revenge drives him to scheme with an Apache war chief to overrun the Box B Ranch, kill all the gringos and add the Baron range to his own blood-stained property. With the right amounts of color, action and suspense, Sherman certainly knows how to make a western gallop, but his real skill is in his gifted creation of gritty characters who must pay the price of greed and ambition. Editor, Bob Gleason; agent, Nat Sobel. (Sept.)