Review: "The Mitford Affair," Marie Benedict

Diana Mitford was the “it girl” of high society in 1930s Britain. Regarded as a great beauty, she had married Bryan Guinness who was not only an heir to the ale fortune, but the Second Baron Moyne. Diana had two lovely sons and moved in the poshest circles.

But she was infatuated with Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Though he was married as well, she was by his side at his many raucous rallies. Eventually, they would marry—in Joseph Goebbels’ living room.

Her younger sister, Unity, tall and awkward, becomes equally enamored of the movement and eventually moves to Germany, where she becomes part of Adolf Hitler’s inner circle.

Meanwhile, a third sister (there were six), Nancy, pokes fun at the fascists in her novels. As World War II begins, she becomes increasingly concerned about Diana and Oswald’s clandestine activities. Clementine Churchill is the women’s cousin, and Nancy relates her fears to Winston. He convinces Nancy to seize the evidence that will stop her sister and brother-in-law from endangering British security.

You’d be right to think you can’t make this kind of stuff up. “The Mitford Affair” is a novel, but it is solidly based on the truth.

The attraction of fascism to Britons (and many Americans) during this time is understandable. Most people feared communism, and fascism was its antithesis. The Great Depression had ruined so many lives. Mosley offered a way out, a supposed path to economic security. Those who flocked to the BUF rallies did not have the benefit of hindsight; they didn’t know where German fascism would lead.

Still, the lengths to which Diana and Unity went in pursuit of love, power and identity is mind-boggling. Not surprisingly, it did not end well for them.

Marie Benedict writes historical novels about well-known women. I thoroughly enjoyed her “The Mystery of Mrs. Christie,” which was based on the Queen of Crime’s disappearance for several days in 1926. Dame Agatha likely left home because she was distraught over her husband’s affair with another woman. Love is a powerful and complicated emotion—as Diana and Unity demonstrate with fascinating but deplorable aplomb in “The Mitford Affair.”

Review: "The Broken Girls," Simone St. James

Fiona Sheridan is a freelance journalist in a small town in present-day Vermont. Her older sister, Deb, was found murdered on the grounds of the deserted Idlewild Hall, once a girls’ boarding school, in 1997. The ensuing investigation, arrest and conviction of the killer tore the town apart.

Fiona has never been able to stop thinking about her sister's death. You could say it haunts her. Now, an investor has bought the old school and is planning to renovate and reopen it. Fiona wants to write about it. The more she uncovers about the school’s history, however, the more tangled the story becomes.

In 1950, Katie, Ce-Ce, Roberta and Sonia are roommates and best friends at Idlewild. They each have their own issues—Idlewild was a school for “troubled” girls—and their parents are out of the picture.

But these supposedly tough girls are afraid. Each has had an experience with the ghost that is said to haunt the campus. Her name is Mary Hand, and for years students have made notes in their textbooks about her presence. Mary seems to know about the problems that brought them to Idlewild.

Life at the school is like a sentence. The girls persevere, until one day, the unthinkable happens—one of them disappears.

Simone St. James artfully alternates these two stories, which eventually intersect in a satisfying and believable way. Both mysteries—past and present—are strong and suspenseful. Fiona’s relationship with a local police officer is intriguing in its complications.

Idlewild Hall is eerie and desolate in its prime, and downright spooky in its modern derelict state. It casts an atmospheric pall that neither reader nor the characters can escape. Though I’m not usually a fan of the paranormal, I thought the ghost plot line added an interesting, other-worldly element that enhanced, rather than detracted from, the mystery story lines.

The true test of mystery and psychological suspense novels is their resolution. Readers need all of the loose threads to be tied up. What was once unfathomable must become crystal-clear. The wrap-up of “The Broken Girls” does not disappoint.

This book intrigued me from the outset, but somewhere in the first third of the novel, after starting to get to know the 1950s’ students, I had a hard time putting it down. It was full steam ahead to the finish—which is just the kind of novel I was craving to help me through this long, snowy winter.

Review: "Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase," by Louise Walters

When we meet Roberta Pietrykowski, she is living a quiet life in a quiet English town, alone with her cat, and working in a quirky bookstore. She seems to have no ambition; she even got her job by happenstance.

As she says of a new employee: “Jenna was never exactly interviewed. Like me, she walked into the Old and New as a customer; like me, she was engaged in conversation and offered a job.”

But Roberta does enjoy the Old and New Bookshop, especially when she finds letters, cards and photos tucked into the used volumes. 

One day, her father brings in a suitcase that once belonged to his mother. It is filled with books he wants to pass on. The valise is mysteriously labeled with the name “Mrs. D.  Sinclair.” Who was she?

When Roberta finds a letter in the case, the mystery deepens. What is she to make of a letter written by her grandfather in 1941, when he supposedly died in the Blitz a year before? Why is he telling her grandmother he can’t marry her?

Roberta wants to know, but her family can’t help. Her father has terminal cancer, her mother deserted them long ago, her grandfather died during World War II, and her grandmother, a frail 108 years old, is in a nursing home.

Readers, however, have the advantage of following Dorothy’s story, which alternates chapters with Roberta’s. Both are remarkably alike—passive on the surface, but full of passion. Roberta and Dorothy appear to be conventional, maybe even boring. But neither is afraid to live life on her own terms.

Dorothy fled her wealthy but controlling mother to marry Albert, a crude farmhand. When she is unable to bear him a child due to miscarriages and a stillbirth, their marriage sours.

The war begins, and Bert signs up. Dorothy, relieved that he’s gone, is designated laundress for the farms tied to the estate, and is directed to share her cottage with two “Land Girls.” These were women who came to the country to do the agricultural work that men, now away at war, had done.

Dorothy’s maternal instincts are strong, and she finds comfort in caring for the petite and pretty Aggie and large, rough Nina. But she still mourns the children she lost, and when a fighter plane crashes in her yard, she runs toward it, hoping to be engulfed by the flames.

Instead, she is hailed as a hero. The pilot was part of a group of Poles working with the British, and the squadron leader, Jan Pietrykowski, comes to the cottage to thank Dorothy and give her the gift of a gramophone.

This is the first in a series of events that will change Dorothy’s life forever.

The book, in its own quiet but powerful way, is a page-turner. Roberta’s life is nowhere near as dramatic as her grandmother’s, but she, at least, finds happiness in the end. 

This is Louise Walters’ first book, and she has done a skillful job of slowly revealing the two women. Letters are motifs, from the ones Roberta finds in books, to those Jan and Dorothy write to one another. And, yes, even an e-mail exchange figures in the story.

Both settings are intriguing. Walters paints a vivid picture of wartime Britain, with its blackout curtains and rationing; villagers ride bicycles and hold dances for the soldiers. Roberta’s work in the bookstore is an enviable situation for bibliophiles.

Reading Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a cozy experience, but not a vacuous one. Dorothy is a remarkable woman, and her story is unforgettable.

Review: "I Always Loved You," by Robin Oliveira

Mary Cassatt, a young artist from Pennsylvania, felt right at home in Belle Époque Paris. She had her own studio, impressive skills and a good work ethic. But she wasn’t selling many paintings, earning much money, or attracting much critical attention.

Then she met Edgar Degas, and he swept her into his circle of friends that included Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Berthe Morisot. Degas was tempestuous, infuriating, rude—and exquisitely talented. He may have been Mary’s lover, but, before she died, she burned any evidence that was contained in the many letters they exchanged over their lifetimes.

What we do know is that, in the turpentine-drenched maelstrom that was late-19th century Paris, Mary found her own unique style, which led to both artistic and financial success, and the rich legacy of paintings still beloved and admired today.

Author Robin Oliveira (My Name is Mary Sutter) imagines the relationship between Cassatt and Degas in her new novel, I Always Loved You. It is the story of the joy and pain of the artistic life and the difficulty of balancing work and love.

It is set in a glorious time in Paris, the period of hope and growth following the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Mary and her friend, Abigail Alcott, the sister of Louisa May, seem almost staid amidst the colorful tumult of Parisian life, but both of them lived in France for the rest of their lives.

Mary’s aura of propriety was a mask, anyway. She was strong-minded, stubborn, and given to fits of pique. Mary infuriated her father when she refused to come home from Paris after a decade of mediocre sales. As the book opens, she is dealing with her father’s demands. Astonishingly, he ultimately decides that if Mary won’t come home, the rest of the family will go to Paris.

This is not as great a stretch as it appears, as the family had lived abroad for years at a time when Mary was growing up. Still, the irony will not be lost on any reader who went to Europe as a youth to escape parents and siblings.

Her father, Edward, is pig-headed and irascible—it’s obvious where Mary gets her temperament. Mother Katherine is sweet, and Mary loves and worries about her ailing sister, Lydia.

The family settles down in an apartment Mary found for them, and while she rues the loss of her combination studio-flat, she locates another studio and returns to painting. Mary somehow manages to enjoy her bourgeois family life as well as her involvement with the renegade Impressionists, but sometimes worlds collide.

When Degas comes to dinner, and the topic of the American Civil War comes up, he comments that the Yankees destroyed the South's way of life.

Mrs. Cassatt is taken aback, and Mary says, “I should have warned you that Monsieur Degas says things he doesn’t mean just to roil the conversation.”

Mary and Edgar’s relationship runs fiery, then frigid, then fiery again. What is Mary to think when she spends weeks creating etchings for Edgar’s new journal—which he then decides not to publish? Or when the Impressionists organize an exhibition, and Edgar doesn’t bring any of his work?

Their complicated relationship is echoed in the bond between Manet and Morisot. They are both married to other people (Berthe is the wife of Édouard’s brother), but their passion for each other is lifelong. Morisot stays by Manet’s side as he dies from syphilis, not caring by that point what anyone thinks of her.

Love and Paris might be quite enough for one novel, but Oliveira also delves into the minds and visions of the artists.  When Mary forgets to meet Abigail for tea, she sends a note: “I’ve fallen in love with color. Please forgive me, but the attraction was irresistible.”

We see Edgar at work, creating his famous paintings and sculptures of ballerinas. He would “hire” a young dancer for the evening and examine her naked body intimately, but in a purely artistic way.

It is Edgar who brings the child of friends to Mary’s studio. He wants her to paint the girl’s portrait, so he won’t have to. Mary has never painted a child before but takes on the challenge, all the while trying to silence her doubts. “This painting was much more ambitious, much more complex than anything she had ever attempted.”

Mary pushes through the agony of not knowing what she is doing, where she is going with the piece, until she finally finds her way. The rest is history—we now know Mary Cassatt best for her depictions of mothers and children, together and apart.

She never married, or gave birth, but Edgar told Mary she “painted love.” She wanted to love him, but he was impossibly self-centered, obsessed with his work, and irresponsible. Mary was pragmatic, disciplined. A matchmaker would never bring them together. But in fiction—ah, what a divine couple they make.

Review: "The Bookman's Tale," Charlie Lovett

Peter Byerly has withdrawn from life after the death of his beloved wife, Amanda. He’s retreated to the cottage the two  purchased in the English countryside, alone in his grief. 

Books changed Peter’s life and brought him together with Amanda. He is a rare-book dealer by trade, and feels most at home in the musty presence of old tomes. When Peter finally ventures out, he heads to Wales, to a town known for its bookstores, and begins to browse.

He opens a volume, and a small watercolor painting falls out. It is--Amanda. How can that be? The work obviously dates from the Victorian era. Peter slips it into a copy of Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood  and buys the book.

Who is B.B., the artist who signed the painting? And how in the world could he have painted someone who looked exactly like Amanda?

The answer is a tangled tale, indeed. Charlie Lovett, a former antiquarian bookseller, has written a suspenseful, romantic and intriguing novel that literally spans centuries.

He tells the story through three threads, which develop in alternating chapters. Peter begins his quest to identify the mysterious B.B. in 1995. Then we go back to 1983, when he is a student at Ridgefield University. Peter is an anxious young man from an impoverished background, but he finds the two loves of his life--old books and Amanda--through his job in the college library.

The third storyline begins in 1596 London, and involves a manuscript that may have served as the basis for Shakespeare’s The Winter Tale, and which The Bard himself has written notes upon.

It soon becomes clear that Peter’s search for B.B. is somehow entwined with the journey of that manuscript through the years, as it is passed from one owner to the next. The portrait of Amanda, however, remains a mystery right until the end, tantalizing readers.

The plot twists several times before the truth is revealed, and all threads neatly tied. Murder, love, stupidity, schemes, ghosts and obsession are all here. So is the story of a broken man who ultimately triumphs--because of his love of books.

Review: "Circle of Shadows," by Imogen Robertson

The German duchy states of the late 18th century are unfamiliar territory for this literary traveler. With English sleuths Harriet Westerman and Gabriel Crowther as my guides, however, I enjoyed a suspenseful tour of one corner of the Holy Roman Empire that was punctuated by murder, mayhem, politics and, of course, court intrigue.

This is the fourth book in the Westerman/Crowther series, but the first for me. Mrs. Westerman is a widow with two children who has been left in comfortable circumstances. She has the knack, common to so many amateur detectives, for attracting crime to her doorstep. Crowther is an anatomist; a nobleman who has renounced his title.

All is well in the neighborhood of Sussex that Westerman and Crowther call home. Until, that is, a message arrives from abroad. Daniel Clode, Harriet’s brother-in-law, has been arrested for murder in the Duchy of Maulberg. He’s there as a representative of the Earl of Sussex, in search of  restitution for bad debts. His wife, Rachel, Harriet’s sister, is with him.

Westerman and Crowther set out for Germany immediately. They are accompanied by Owen Graves, guardian of the young Earl of Sussex, and Michaels, the local pub landlord who happens to be fluent in the duchy dialect. To their immense relief, Clode has not been executed by the time they arrive.

The case is strange from the start. Clode is accused of murdering a noblewoman, but he has no recollection of the crime. In fact, he’s rambling like a madman. And although Lady Martesen was stabbed, it turns out she actually died of drowning.

More murders follow, and the detectives pursue a twisted trail that involves Freemasons, an idealistic political group, alchemists, psychics and builders of automata--early robot-like figures that could be designed to dance and write letters.

The scenes shift from town to court to jail to countryside and back again. The rich cast of characters includes an insouciant young spy, Jacob Pegel; a wily castrato, Manzerotti; a stolid district officer, Herr von Krall; and, of course, the Duke of Maulberg himself, Ludwig Christoph.

Harriet and Crowther sift through the bewildering evidence while Michaels uses his linguistic skills to track down a mysterious fortune teller. There are suspects aplenty, and the detectives race against the clock to find the murderer. The duke is getting married--and the bodies are piling up.

This is a most satisfying read, made even more so by the author’s careful attention to historical detail. Castrati and automata in the same book could seem like a stretch, but here, it works.
 

Review: "The Orphanmaster," by Jean Zimmerman

Take a wily, yet beautiful, Dutch she-merchant named Blandine van Couvering. Add her self-appointed bodyguard, a seven-foot tall African. Then bring in Edward Drummond, a British spy; a possibly psychotic Indian; a strange, rich family of brothers; the Latin-spouting peg-legged director general of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvestant; and, of course, the orphan master of the title. Finally, throw a flesh-eating monster into the mix. The result is a fascinating, harrowing historical thriller of the first order.

The founding of the Dutch colony of New Netherlands does not figure among the best-known episodes of American history, such as the landing of the Pilgrims, Paul Revere’s ride, or the Battle of Gettysburg. But the Dutch were definitely here--and they did run a thriving colony in the 17th century that included New Amsterdam, located on the lower tip of Manhattan, and a trading post at Beverwyck -- present-day Albany, N.Y.

Though New Amsterdam was home to Germans, English, Africans, Indians and both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, the Dutch way of life ruled. This included greater freedoms for women than existed under British law, which enabled Blandine to run a flourishing trade in items manufactured from beaver pelts, which were so much in demand in Europe.

Blandine is an orphan, and so has a special affection for Aet Visser, the orphan master. Visser is a sly drunk who can be calculating, but who does seem to have the best interest of his charges in mind. His job is to watch over them, after a fashion, and place them as servants in the colonists’ homes, which was a better fate for them than living on the streets.

Trouble arrives when orphans begin disappearing. Slowly, evidence suggests that a witika--a legendary Native American monster--may be abroad.

The creature, the story goes, terrifies and then cannibalizes its victims. The demon is found in the culture of many Indian tribes, and is possibly best known as the “windigo.” But how can a mythical being steal and murder orphans? Both Indians and colonists believed that people could be seized with “witika fever,” turning them into living cannibals.

Though Blandine and Edward investigate the deaths, The Orphanmaster is not a traditonal mystery. In fact, one quibble is that the plot does not follow a direct trajectory--at times the reader loses sight of the central point of the book, which is the murders of the orphans.

But this is a minor point, as the reader does not have much time to stop and wonder why Blandine and Edward aren’t always on the case. After all, Edward is in the New World to track down regicides--the men responsible for the death of King Charles I. Aet Visser needs to keep track of his charges. Blandine has to ditch one suitor and then fall in love with Edward. Both have to flee New Amsterdam under a cloud of suspicion--she’s accused of being a witch, and he’s discovered to be a spy.

The multi-character point of view keeps the story humming and adds richness to the character development. When Edward travels alone to New Haven, for example, he experiences the vastness of the New World as only a newcomer could.

Jean Zimmerman’s research is impeccable, and the tiny 17th century settlement comes to life in the pages of this book:

“As the Christmastide pageant proceeded, the great Stadt Huys meeting-hall became close, its air clogged with tobacco smoke and human exhalations. Three-legged stools had been arranged near the mammoth hearth, where a yule log the size of an ox smoldered.”

Soon, though, the colonists will be up and screaming. An apparition--the witika?--has been broadcast on the wall, a clever combination of glass slide and lantern.

The Orphanmaster is not for the fainthearted. Violent Indian raids, bizarre corporal punishments and, of course, cannibalism, figure in its pages. But, in the end, goodness prevails--sort of.

Review: "Helen Keller in Love," by Rosie Sultan

Like so many other schoolgirls, I loved Helen Keller. Assigned by our sixth-grade teachers to choose a biography to read, we were drawn to the story of the deaf-blind girl who defied all odds to become successful, accomplished and world-famous.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Nellie Bly and Babe Didrikson Zaharias were weak competition for our interest. Was it because Helen’s tale was so poignant? Or were we attracted to the idea of the rescuing angel Annie Sullivan, who transforms the wild child and then devotes her life to her? Maybe girls relate to Helen because, at times, we feel mute and imprisoned--not literally, but figuratively.

I probably first read about Helen Keller in the “Childhoods of Famous Americans” series. I was so addicted to these books I even read the ones about George Eastman and Eli Whitney. So while I was intimately familiar with the timeline of Helen’s life--born with sight and hearing, she became blind and deaf after suffering a fever--I didn’t know much about her adult life, save that she was famous and was still living when I was a little girl.

It was delightful to reconnect with Helen Keller and see that she not only thrived as an advocate for the disabled, but was a Socialist, a war protester and a supporter of birth-control rights. She even endorsed the concept of “free love”! And she was willing to defy her family, Annie Sullivan, and, perhaps, public opinion, to marry the man she loved. Helen was, indeed, a woman after my own heart.
  
Rosie Sultan’s novel, Helen Keller in Love, brings the reader into the mind of this most unique individual. Through Annie’s perseverance, young Helen made the connections between sign and object, sign and idea, sign and process--and kept right on going. She was a star pupil at the Perkins School for the Blind, graduated cum laude from Radcliffe, and wrote 12 books. She developed her individual philosophies of life through what she “heard” from words spelled into her hand, felt on the faces and lips of those she met, and read in Braille books.

Yet, if she was left alone in an unfamiliar room, she was helpless.

Sultan’s Helen Keller is a woman who lives in a remarkably sensory world, where footsteps rattle floorboards, a moist breeze heralds rain, and anger is expressed with a closed fist. When Peter Fagan enters her orbit, as a substitute secretary for Annie, who has a racking cough that is misdiagnosed as tuberculosis, he wafts a scent of “typewriter ink, cigarette smoke, and the strange muskrat smell I always associate with men.”

Helen’s fame excites Peter; she sees a way to fulfill the empty last corner of her life--love, marriage and motherhood. But “Team Helen” (her mother, sister, gun-toting brother-in-law, and Annie) have too much invested in her to let her go. Helen is one of the most famous women in the world. Mark Twain loved her like a daughter, Andrew Carnegie supported her financially, and Alexander Graham Bell was a friend and mentor. Marriage, though, remained out of her impressive reach.

Helen Keller in Love is an enthralling love story, even though the reader knows it ends badly. The beloved Helen Keller, the myth and the real woman, goes on--all the more remarkably after enduring a broken heart.
  

Review: "Savage Girl," by Jean Zimmerman

Hugo Delegate has found the body of his best friend, Beverly Willett, in the study of the Willett’s family home at Gramercy Park, Manhattan. He is accused of murder. In 1876, the penalty for this crime is death. But Hugo is only worried that he will get off. He wants to be convicted.

Though readers will sense the reason for Hugo’s strange attitude after a few chapters, the sorry tale of the privileged Delegate family, and the tragic consequences of their actions, will take the entire novel to unfold.

As the book opens, Hugo is sitting in The Tombs, New York City’s infamous prison. His family has arranged for him to be represented by the esteemed law firm of Howe and Hummel. The attorneys are famous for getting their clients off the hook.

Hugo tells them how he came to be at the scene of the crime. It’s a story that begins a year earlier, in Virginia City, Nevada.

The Delegates have traveled west in their private train, to inspect the silver mine that is the source of their fabulous wealth. Anna Maria and Freddy (Hugo has always called his parents by their first names), out of a lack of any other productive activity, fancy themselves amateur  anthropologists. Hugo and his mother make an interesting spectacle as they stroll down the dusty main street of Virginia City accompanied by Ti-Lu, Anna Maria’s Chinese maid, and Tahktoo, a Zuni Berdache, or transvestite. 

When the family comes upon a shoddy freak show featuring a "savage girl," the urge to bring her back east with them is irresistible. They have always wanted to keep a "feral child," Hugo  relflects.

According to an odd creature, the Sage Hen, who purports to be her guardian, the girl was abandoned in the wild by her parents. In the show, the "savage girl" flicks around long metal claws, growls and shrieks, and then takes a bath in a large tub, which is about as erotic as it gets in 19th century America.

Freddy tries to buy out the show’s organizers, but when that fails, he uses his wiles to wrest the girl from her life on the stage.

    

Eventually, the Delegates learn the girl's name is Bronwyn, and exactly what her story is. Bronwyn appears willing to leave her wild life behind, and enter fully into New York society. This delights Anna Maria, who turns the girl into the most sparkling debutante of the season.

But Hugo is disturbed. He thinks Bronwyn is manipulative. He doesn't understand why she hates him. Then, he begins to notice that whenever a man flirts with her or otherwise shows her attention, he is killed. And not just murdered, but disemboweled. 

Hugo is not a reliable narrator. An anatomy student at Harvard, he's obsessed with sharp objects and spends much of his time creating intricate drawings of preserved body parts. Hugo has spent time in a sanitarium — he's "nervy" — and may black out from time to time. He suspects Bronwyn of the crimes — and himself.

This novel is rich in detail and colorful language. Christmas dinner at the Delegates' includes "roast duck succulent in its onion sauce, baked potatoes with their jackets crisped in duck fat, chicken pie, stewed carrots...hickory nut macaroons and chocolate drops." Hobbledehoys, "assorted dips, tossers and clips" and gandy dancers pepper the pages. When the family arrives back home in New York, the "berdache lay atop of a mountain of freight piled upon a wicker baggage cart, borne along as though it were Cleopatra's barge."

The story takes us from Bronwyn's exquisite coming out ball to the Centennial Exposition of 1876 in Philadelphia, where a "wild west" exhibit stirs up the festering remains of Bronwyn's past life, to a final showdown in Central Park's Sheep Meadow.

New York is vividly described, as the characters traverse the horse-dung covered streets and view the copper arm and torch of the future Liberty, which is on display in Madison Square Park as a fundraising effort to erect the statue. The conspicuous consumption of the Gilded Age is a persistent theme: Willett's father, an ultra-conservative, has created at one of his summer homes "an exact replica of Marie Antoinette's play farm at Versailles."

Real-life people also figure in the story. P.T. Barnum wants to sign up Bronwyn. Radical sisters Victoria Woodhall and Tennessee Claflin find her a kindred spirit. And Hugo visits psychologist William James, who happens to be his anatomy mentor, to talk about his troubled feelings. Alice, James' sister, suggests the antidote to suicidal thoughts is to "clothe oneself in neutral tints, walk by still waters and possess one's soul in silence."

Unfortunately, Hugo doesn't have that option. The raw west (George Armstrong Custer's troops are decimated at the Little Big Horn in 1876) is colliding with the uneasily civilized east, with the "savage girl" at the epicenter. The reader is glad to see that not only does she remain true to her soul, she helps Hugo to find his.