cover image Horse Thieves

Horse Thieves

N. Nye, Nelson C. Nye. M. Evans and Company, $14.95 (176pp) ISBN 978-0-87131-518-2

The first of a new Evans Novels of the West series, this is also the first novel in 18 years from Spur- and Golden Saddleman-winner Nye. And it's a disappointment. Wrangler Peep Boyano hires on to work for young, beautiful Merrilee Manton on her Arizona horse ranch. The orphaned Merrilee's holdings are about to be foreclosed by a mean banker so she leads her half-dozen hands and her horses into Nevada. En route they face would-be thieving Indians, the rigors of the desert and treachery from within their band. With help from Death Valley Scotty and half-Mexican Peep, Merrilee makes it to Goldfield, Nev., where further trials await. The writing is flat, replete with anachronismsthough the actual time-setting is quite vagueand clumsy metaphors: ""Taciturn and silent as a sack full of cats.'' Unlikely, cardboard charactersnarrator Peep, we learn late, is a Yale manand an almost complete lack of local color hurt, too. Evans is planning one western a month through February 1988; one hopes for improvement. (September 25)