Bones of Paradise

Narrator Christina Traister tackles a large cast of characters in this epic Western mystery set in the decade following the massacre at Wounded Knee. When rancher J.B. Bennett and a young Native woman named Star are found dead in the Nebraska Sand Hills, J.B.'s estranged wife, Dulcinea, and Star's sister, Rose, unite to untangle the mystery of their deaths. Traister's narration is expressive, especially when she voices Dulcinea and the many laconic ranch hands J.B. employed, but her constant shifts between whispering and shouting make volume control a challenge. Without meaningful breaks in her steady pacing, the narrative's many jumps in time can be difficult to follow. Still, her emotive reading captures the beautiful desolation of the Sand Hills depicted in Agee's novel. E.C. � AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

June 6, 2016
Agee’s (The River Wife) emotionally rich tale is as wild and sprawling as the Midwestern plains. This is the Nebraska Sandhills a decade after the army’s massacre of more than 200 Lakota at Wounded Knee in 1890. When middle-aged white rancher J.B. Bennett and the younger Native American Star are murdered, apparently together, their families collide. J.B.’s wife, Dulcinea, estranged from her sons through the machinations of his J.B.’s father, Drum, seeks reconciliation with her boys even as she wrestles to maintain rights to the ranch that Drum wants back, no matter the means. Meanwhile, Rose’s efforts to solve the murder of her sister, Star, threaten her long friendship with Dulcinea. The evolving friendship of Dulcinea and Rose is a poignant counterpoint to the cruelties born of ignorance and greed in the face of cultural difference. The story’s several parts—gritty Western, family saga, mystery—work together for a memorable tale of heartbreak and redemption. Agent: Emma Sweeney, Emma Sweeny Agency.

March 1, 2016
Ten years after the tragedy at Wounded Knee, white rancher J.B. Bennett and young Native American Star are found murdered on a remote stretch of Bennett's land. Subsequent events reveal the terrible sins and secrets of the Bennett clan while bringing to the fore Bennett's estranged wife Dulcinea and Star's sister, Rose, out to avenge her death. With a 75,000-copy first printing; Agee has two "New York Times" Notable Books to her name.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 15, 2016

The Sand Hills of 1890s Nebraska are a harsh, demanding place. Rancher J.B. Bennett is trying his best to flourish in adverse conditions, despite his controlling father, absent wife, and estranged son. But he doesn't get much of a chance; within the novel's first few pages, he finds a murdered Lakota woman on his land. Unfortunately for him the killer is still around to get rid of any witnesses. These two murders set the tone for this historical saga. Dulcinea, the absent wife, returns to avenge J.B. and reconcile with her sons, but it is not as easy as she had hoped. Meanwhile, her friend Rose investigates the death of her sister, the Lakota woman killed alongside J.B. The roots of these events lie in the decade-old horrors of the massacre of more than 200 Lakota people at Wounded Knee. With larger-than-life personalities, sudden violence, and the relentless influence of landscape and weather, this Western by the author of The River Wife is an evocative story of survival, and the lengths people will go to for wealth and property. VERDICT With strong historical content as well as a murder mystery, family dysfunction, and a hint of romance, there is plenty here to keep readers satisfied. [See Prepub Alert, 2/21/16; library marketing.]--Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2016

Ten years after the tragedy at Wounded Knee, white rancher J.B. Bennett and young Native American Star are found murdered on a remote stretch of Bennett's land. Subsequent events reveal the terrible sins and secrets of the Bennett clan while bringing to the fore Bennett's estranged wife Dulcinea and Star's sister, Rose, out to avenge her death. With a 75,000-copy first printing; Agee has two New York Times Notable Books to her name.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2016
A deceptively leisurely, intensely heart-rending historical Western about greed and love gone wrong, set in the Sand Hills of Nebraska 10 years after the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre of the Lakota Sioux at the Pine Ridge Reservation in nearby South Dakota.Hoping to reunite his family and win back his wife, Dulcinea, rancher J.B. Bennett is on his way to retrieve his older son, Cullen, from his father, Drum, who has raised the 19-year-old for 10 years. When J.B. stops to examine the body of a recently strangled young Lakota Sioux named Star, someone he evidently knows shoots him dead. Down-and-out cowboy Ry Graver stumbles across the bodies and is also shot, but only wounded, by the same or perhaps another unseen assailant. Soon Dulcinea returns to the ranch, hoping to rebuild her relationships with Cullen and his 15-year-old brother, Hayward, who was raised by J.B. after Drum took Cullen and Dulcinea left for reasons that emerge slowly and make cruel sense only within the context of Drum's belief in his family's destiny. Dulcinea hires a creepily attractive lawyer, Percival Chance, to prove J.B. deeded the ranch to her and hires Graver to help her manage the farm. Dulcinea's best friend is Star's sister Rose, whom she met while teaching at Pine Ridge. Both want to learn the murderer's identity, but while Rose wants revenge and believes the killings have to do with Wounded Knee--Agee (The River Wife, 2007, etc.) doesn't scrimp on gruesome detail in recounting the massacre attended by most of the novel's male characters--Dulcinea fears that the guilty party is someone she cares about. Meanwhile, local ranchers itching to sell their oil drilling rights pressure Dulcinea to go along. She resists; Rose and Dulcinea are women strong enough to cow John Wayne. This sexy, violent, intricate Western is ultimately a love letter to the Sand Hills, "where all was alive, all living, in one form or another."

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