cover image Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange

Ladies of the Goldfield Stock Exchange

Sybil Downing. Forge, $23.95 (352pp) ISBN 978-0-312-86331-9

Based loosely on a 1907 Los Angeles Times clipping, Downing's (Fire in the Hole) prosaic contribution to Forge's Women of the West series chronicles the travails of three unlikely women abroad in Goldfield, Nev., site of the last big gold strike in the American West. Young Meg is diverted from medical school in Baltimore when her father, an astute Colorado mining engineer, is killed in a suspicious mining accident. Still-youthful Tess, a former whore turned saloonkeeper, dreams of buying a ranch and respectability for her illegitimate daughter. And Verna, an aging, undaunted newspaper publisher, wants a nest egg for her declining years. While all three set out to make their fortunes on the Goldfield Stock Exchange, they are thwarted by sex discrimination and rally fellow townswomen to their defense--against enemies high and low, including corrupt mine owners, unscrupulous politicians, power-hungry brokers and even the women's own husbands and lovers. Visions of cowboys and Indians on horseback standing agape at the spectacle of telephones, electric lights, trains and motor cars will evoke nostalgia, but Downing's use of disaster--namely, a pneumonia outbreak and a dear aunt's stroke--are cliche. The shopworn plot offers few real surprises as romance blossoms and, against all obstacles, the women win the day. (July)