Get ready for a best-selling mix of suspense, action, and illuminating history.
Robert B. Parker’s Revelation
(February 7, G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
The late author Robert B. Parker’s lawmen characters, marshals Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch, live on thanks to the efforts of writer Robert Knott. The ninth Cole and Hitch story (in a series that started with 2005’s Appaloosa) rolls into action when the crime-fighting pair sets out to capture some fugitive convicts who’ve broken out of prison and kidnapped women in the process. Needless to say, the manhunt does not go smoothly.
Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West
(February 28, St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan)
Dubbed by its publisher as “the definitive chronicle of America’s most famous lawmen,” this upcoming nonfiction narrative is at least the work of a pedigreed chronicler of Western history. Tom Clavin’s 2014 book, The Heart of Everything That Is, turned the life of Sioux warrior Red Cloud into a must-read bestseller that also garnered serious critical acclaim. Clavin now lends his storytelling acumen to the truths and myths of Dodge City, Kansas, one of the most infamous towns to shape the West.
Vicious Circle
(March 21, G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Celebrated western writer C.J. Box returns to his beloved, reliable character, Joe Pickett, in the 17th full-length novel about the no-nonsense Wyoming game warden. Box’s faithful readers can attest that the Pickett stories have become an expected treat every year, dating back to the very first title in the series, Open Season, in 2001. The new book, Vicious Circle, finds the game warden preparing himself for a face-off against the Cates family, the serious baddies that readers came to know in the 2015 Joe Pickett novel, Endangered.
Thunder in the Mountains: Chief Joseph, Oliver Otis Howard, and the Nez Perce War
(April 4, W.W. Norton & Company)
Daniel J. Sharfstein’s fascinating new nonfiction work zooms in on the post-Reconstruction conflict between Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph and Union Army Gen. Oliver Otis Howard. Howard had been an advocate for equal rights for former slaves, but he didn’t apply the same principles in his efforts to force Native Americans to move to reservations. The book weaves together all the battles, ideas, and political ramifications surrounding the two American leaders.
The Western Star
(Date TBA, Penguin Books)
Another one of Western fiction’s most beloved characters is Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire, who’s not only been the focus of author Craig Johnson’s popular novels but also the namesake of the well-regarded TV drama (now on Netflix). This year brings us the latest Longmire book, The Western Star, and it’s a bit of a curveball. Instead of taking place in modern-day Absaroka County, much of the new story flashes back to 1972, when Walt was just a deputy attending an annual sheriff’s association meeting on a moving train.
From the January 2017 issue.
