‘Listen To The Mockingbird’ by Penny Rudolph
Published by Poisoned Pen Press. July 2008.
ISBN 978-1-59058-348-5

I am not sure whether this is a Western, a thriller or a historical detective story.  There are facets of all these in fact.  Matty Summerhayes is the likeable and determined heroine who is trying to develop a horse ranch  in New Mexico in 1861 just as the American Civil War has begun.  She has a hard task as a lone woman and, moreover, one with a number of skeletons in her cupboard.  The story is a thriller with Matty threatened by officers from both sides in the war, trying to protect the people on her ranch, coping with childbirth and disease, dealing with legal threats to her ownership and mysterious attempts to buy her land.  

Matty faces an uphill task as ranch owner but she surmounts the boulders in her path with redoubtable strength using her wits to succeed.  

The Western setting is well delineated with Matty who is from St. Louis reluctantly developing a passion for the beauty of the mountains. It is an exciting read with surprises in every chapter

-------------------

Jennifer S. Palmer

Penny Rudolph has written 2 other detective stories with a modern setting in Los Angeles featuring Rachel Chavez, they are Thicker than Blood and Lifeblood.