This is not-quite-a-western novel, though it has cowboys (Tom Mix) and a trail drive. It’s a historical novel that spans the ritzy East Coast and the wilds of Mexico with a cast of characters ranging from a fictional railroad robber baron to real-life personages such as Pancho Villa, reporter/socialist John Reed, an aging Ambrose Bierce, and a young George Patton. Tossed in are upper crust essentials (a “cottage” in the Newport and a yacht), a plane vs. train contest, a kidnapping of the robber baron’s children, bullfights, and run-ins with Mexican Federale troops, Pancho Villa’s ragtag army, and attacks from nature (rattlesnakes, gila monsters, jaguars, and bears). 

With typical American arrogance and the conceit that his money would protect him, railroad baron John Shaughnessy, in severe financial straits, takes his family in his private railroad cars and journeys to Mexico to keep their cattle from being “requisitioned” by Pancho Villa. There, the men decide to drive the cattle north to El Paso, leaving behind wives and children. Pancho Villa kidnaps the boy and girl, and Shaughnessy and his son pursue the general through the wilds of northern Mexico. The events depicted are violent, cruel, even brutal, at times. 

This book has a lot in common with My Name is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende, which follows a female war correspondent handling similar situations in Chile, and The Hot Country, which is also about Pancho Villa and Mexico during the same time frame but set in Veracruz, Mexico. I found Emilia del Valle unlikeable on many levels, but enjoyed El Paso. For me, The Hot Country falls somewhere between the two. It’s better than Emilia del Valle but not as much fun to read as El Paso. While the characters in El Paso lack the depth of Larry McMurtry’s Gus and Call from Lonesome Dove, but I enjoyed reading El Paso.

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El Paso (Liveright, October 4, 2016) is available through:

Your local independent bookseller      |     Amazon     |     Barnes & Noble

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You can read my review of My Name is Emilia del Valle here.

You can read my review of The Hot Country here.

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