Trail of the Circle Star

by Lee Martin

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0803488548
• ISBN13: 9780803488540
• Release Date: January 1991
• Publisher: Avalon Books
• Length: 192 Pages

Customer Reviews

Another Darringer meets and beats his match

Martin has at least five novels about the Darringer boys. Trail of the Circle Star is the story of Hank, a deputy marshall who rides into Prospect, Colorado only to find his cousin and hero hanging from a tree outside town. He had been shot in the back, was alive but unconscious when hanged. This is no. 4 in the Darringer series and a complex plot it is, too. Prospect is a town of wanted men who are starting over and the little informer Stumpy keeps his eye out for wanted posters he can use for blackmail or give to bounty hunters. Okay, it is one way to make a living. Rosalee Carter and Melanie Sloan are the town beauties but Rosalee wants to stay whereas Melanie cannot wait to leave. Subplot: Rosalee is part Cheyenne; her grandmother was killed at the Sand Creek Massacre by Chivington. As many mixed-blood people know, especially those from the South and West, when mixed-blood ancestry results in darker skin, that is not a good thing. What does escape me from how Martin deals with this is that, since Rosalee had blue eyes, why did her father not say she was "black Irish"? That's what we did in the South. (Black Irish do not, of course, have African ancestry but rather black hair.) However, perhaps that would have interfered with the anti-hero, Gibney, who presented himself as one of the Eastern elite and a Harvard graduate who just decided to go west to seek his fortune. So should Rosalee marry Gibney, who could advance any social ambitions she might have, or hold out for Hank who accepted her as she was? In the meantime, someone shoots at Hank but the bullet misses him and hits Melanie, killing her. The educated but violent bounty hunter and hired gun, Yancy, kidnaps Rosalee because he, too, wants her. Hank has his hands full but he proves equal to the task. As I said in another review of one of the Darringer series, I'm not yet used either to the New Age sensitive cowboy who cries as easily as he draws his gun or the irasicible old codger who also cries easily. I guess it is a Nineties kind of thing. I am now determined to interview some old codgers whose pappies and grandpappies lived in the olden days to see if they had sensitive guys in those days. I don't think those men showed much emotion except anger so I doubt if there was much crying among the men or if anyone saw much among the women, either. It's still a good western and if you like the Darringer boys, don't miss this one.