Mike Shea on the month’s new releases
Rick Bass
Houghton Mifflin
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With his historical novel The Diezmo (Houghton Mifflin), Rick Bass graphically conveys the intense sights, sounds, and emotions of the ill-fated Mier expedition through the person of James Alexander, his fictional narrator. Sixteen-year-old James seeks glory when he rides out of La Grange with a Texas militia seeking unspecified revenge for Santa Anna’s victory at the Alamo. Instead, he finds himself part of one of the most inglorious and bloody episodes in Texas history. Bass plays the English language like a stringed instrument—full crashing chords here and gently plucked notes there—and he demonstrates how the best fiction conveys essential human truths in the guise of a ripping good tale.
Harry Hunsicker
Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's Minotaur
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Cheers to Dallasite Harry Hunsicker for giving us Hank (né Lee Henry) Oswald, a most welcome and worthy heir to the legacy of wisecracking private eyes like Robert Parker’s Spenser and Robert Crais’s Elvis Cole. It’s unfortunate (but entertaining) that Oswald spends much of Still River (Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s Minotaur) bleeding, bruised, unconscious, in a jam, or on the lam. Hunsicker’s detective noir debut could stand more inventive plotting—the Trinity Vista development has Big D’s real estate moguls playing rough to lock up a multimillion-dollar contract—but he hits pay dirt with Oswald, whose droll blow-by-blow (“I turned the tap on and filled Mr. Coffee with Mr. Water”) and everyman persona make him a most entertaining chap to tag along with for a day or two.
W. K. Stratton
Harcourt
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Chasing the Rodeo (Harcourt) is Austin journalist W. K. Stratton’s personal assay of the rodeo arts and the sport’s colorful history and personalities, from western star Tom Mix to legendary bucking-bronco rider Jackson Sundown. It’s also an ode to Cowboy Don, Stratton’s absentee father, who spent much of his life scratching out a living on the rodeo circuit. Stratton’s anecdotes, research, and personal observations about seven of America’s most unique rodeos provide a behind-the-scenes look at an American subculture that is alien to most. Chasing the Rodeo consciously reaches out to readers of all stripes, but it will be most fully appreciated by faithful fans of riding, roping, and big, shiny belt buckles.
