Cape Hell

March 15, 2016
Estleman has multiple series going across decades, but his Page Murdock novels, starring a U.S. deputy and blending the traditional western with crime fiction, remain among his most entertaining ventures. In this installment, a sort of homage to Heart of Darkness set in the 1880s, Murdock is charged with tracking a former Confederate soldier, Captain Oscar Childress, to Mexico's Sierra Madres and determining if the maverick officer is attempting to raise an army to invade the U.S. Outfitted with a special train called El Esperanto (The Ghost), Murdock, an engineer, and an enigmatic fireman set out from Montana south to Mexico and eventually into the daunting mountains, where the veneer of civilization gradually disappears. With the train journey echoing the boat trips of Conrad and Francis Ford Coppola (in Apocalypse Now, itself an homage to Conrad), Estleman shepherds his hero into a world without moorings, where madness reigns and nightmare becomes reality. At one point, Murdock must escape his pursuers through a literal boneyard filled with human remains ( Razor-sharp sternums slashed at my shins ). Fine hallucinogenic writing with appeal across several genres.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)