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Title: Rode Hard, Put Away Dead by Sinclair Browning ISBN: 0-553-58327-1 Publisher: Crime Line Pub. Date: 30 January, 2001 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Best yet in the best new mystery series in decades
Comment: This book is more detailed and longer than the previous two in the series. I enjoyed the character development and the more complex plot.
For animal lovers this entire series is a treat. Trade Ellis has her horses, dogs, and a pig ... and they are family. It is the mixtures of strong mystery, tough female protagonist, western rural flavor, and the relationship with her animals, that make this series fun.
Oddly enough, the dialog and character of Trade Ellis remind me of (a female version of) Spencer. Her thoughts seem so natural.
I look forward to more in the series.
Rating: 3
Summary: Third-Book Doldrums?
Comment: This is the third in the Trade Ellis series. In this outing, Trade, a full-time rancher and part-time private investigator is asked to investigate the death of an acquaintance by the dead woman's husband who is soon everyone's choice for number-one suspect. But Trade has her doubts about his guilt.
The first two books in this series were tightly written with strong character development. In this outing, Browning could have used a good editor. By the middle of the book I was very tired of being told how hot June was. While the heat can and should be part of the book, reminding me at every turn that it was June and it was hot quickly became tedious. A good editor might have helped Browning tighten up her writing as well. By about page 283, I was wondering if the book would ever end. It did, but with Trade not taking the necessary precautions for her safety that I would have expected an intelligent woman investigating a murder would take knowing the murderer knows she's investigating and that it is only a matter of time before she puts two and two together and points her finger at him/her.
I really liked the first two books of this series. I am hoping that this is a transitional book - the second-book doldrums saved for the third book, and that Browning will be back on track with book four of the series. This was not a badly written or plotted book, it was, rather, just too long and tedious.
Rating: 5
Summary: This series only gets better
Comment: If you plan to ride or walk in the Southern Arizona desert on a dry, hot June day, don't start at dawn even though it's cooler. Wait til about nine and you'll catch a breeze.
That's just one example of the many sketches of Arizona desert and ranch living you'll find throughout Sinclair Browning's Trade Ellis series. Trade, like Browning, is a real cowgirl and a genuine desert rat. try this: "The brittlebrush and ocotillo had gone dormant, leaving their leaves on the desert floor in an effort to conserve what little water they could suck up. The prickly pear cactus was now as flat as thin battered pancakes and the giant saguaros looked like they'd been fasting". Abbey and Bowden, you got company.
But this isn't a nature treatise - it's a detective novel. And a damn good one. Like Browning's earlier "The Sporting Club" the primary story is based on a real incident. A bull-riding cowboy marries a wealthy heiress almost twice his age. They go camping in the desert, drink a lot, and even though she's a good swimmer, she's found drowned the next day.
That's the real story of Margaret Lesher and T.C. Thorenson and her 1997 death. It's mirrored by Browning's fictional Abigail Van Thiessen and J.B. Calendar. The real story ended in a ruling of accidental death. Browning's wonderful imagination does much more with the fictional version.
After Abbie's death, JB hires rancher and part time PI Trade to prove him innocent. Like any good detective (or lawyer or political consultant) she's never quite sure about her own client. And there's a great secondary story involving Mexican druglords and Trade's ranch foreman and his ex-wife that makes the acion even tenser.
As a whodunit she scores big, revealing as the story unwinds an increasingly plausible list of subjects. She admirably fulfills the basic requirement of a mystery by keeping you mystified to the end. It could just as well be the colonel in the library with the candlestick. If you liked Browning's earlier Trade Ellis yarns like The Last Song Dogs you will like this one even better. She's become a master of this form and is in the front rank of nust western mystery writers, but anybody else writng anywhere today.
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Title: The Sporting Club by Sinclair Browning ISBN: 0553579436 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 February, 2000 List Price(USD): $5.50 |
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Title: The Last Song Dogs by Sinclair Browning ISBN: 0553579401 Publisher: Crime Line Pub. Date: 06 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $5.50 |
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Title: Traggedy Ann by Sinclair Browning ISBN: 0553586394 Publisher: Dell Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: Scorpion Rain by David Cole ISBN: 0380819716 Publisher: Avon Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $6.50 |
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Title: Confidence Woman by Judith Van Gieson, Judith Van Gieson ISBN: 0451205006 Publisher: Signet Pub. Date: February, 2002 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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