West of Washoe: A Western Story (Thorndike Western I) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Tim Champlin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Western veteran Champlin's well-plotted, rousing yarn features Gil Ross, a government mine inspector who faces some stiff, deadly interference. Tasked with preparing a mineral report as Nevada seeks statehood, Gil travels to Virginia City, Nev., and befriends newspaper editor Martin Scrivener, who has written editorials excoriating Virginia City's gang of greedy swindlers led by Ben Holladay, the wealthy owner of the Blue Hole Mine. The violence and intrigue escalate with the newspaper offices firebombed, the stage line robbed and Gil's friend challenged to a duel. Ross also strikes up a romance with the wily, attractive card dealer, Angeline Champeaux. As the action heats up, Ross uses his knowledge of geology to wiggle out of a couple of tight spots and offers gunslinging advice to a green reporter. Plenty of frontier action keeps the plot clipping along while the geology and mining themes lend Champlin's tale flavor. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

A few years back, Gil Ross visited Virginia City, Nevada, as a magazine writer covering the new silver boom. But now it’s 1864, and Nevada is poised to become a state of the Union. Gil is now a mining engineer, tasked with reporting back to the Lincoln administration on the viability of the mines. Returning to Virginia City, Gil is shocked at the changes (for good and bad), and soon he’s plunged into danger. This is a two-fisted, old-school western: in the first three chapters, Gil is involved in an attempted stagecoach holdup, a fight in a restaurant, and an arson attempt at a local newspaper office. Luckily, he’s a guy who knows how to defend himself, and he isn’t afraid of a fight. Luckily, too, Champlin is a writer who can take a formula-heavy, generic plot line and make it seem new again, through a combination of lively characterizations and bare-bones narrative. A solid western. --David Pitt --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 323 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (September 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1410418650
• ISBN-13: 978-1410418654
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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5.0 out of 5 stars Fool's Gold; Gold's Fool, November 10, 2009

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Jim Duggins, Ph.D. "Author, The Power and Sla... (Rancho Mirage, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: West of Washoe: A Western Story (Five Star First Edition Western) (Hardcover)

A quick precis of Tim champlin's book "West of Washoe" might be: "Greed clones itself and is never satisfied." In this story, three of Virginia City's richest citizens set out to enrich themselves even further by salting a worthless mine and taking over the stage coach company that ships the gold and silver to the mints in San Francisco a.k.a. "down below".

The avid historical fiction reader will be delighted with this novel because it illuminates a time and place not well known, a pre-civil war mining town. To call Virginia City a mining town is gross understatement. Virginia City was in fact a King Midis treasure trove that could and sometimes did break the bank, occasionally even most of the banks. It's clear, too, that the book was painstakingly researched -- and you'll marvel at the people such as Mark Twain that you know in this book. It takes special courage for an author to include well-known people in his or her work because readers are ruthless when they spot a flaw. Tim Champlin doesn't take chances. He knows his setting and characters like the back of his hand.

As the story opens, protagonist Gil Ross is aboard a stagecoach headed for Virginia City to inspect the mines and surrounding geography for present and future yields. That stage is targeted as one of the many hold-ups engineered by the villains who want to break the Overland Stage Company with insurance claims for missing shipments. Awakened from a sound sleep inside the coach, Gil Ross immediately springs into action with his Navy Colt dispatching the would be outlaws with a hail of bullets and saving the day, the coach's cargo, and the other passengers. That, however, is just the first chapter ... yesterday's villains were not that easy to scare off and this book sees us through many other attempts at their going for the gold.

Tim Champlin's one of our generation's most extraordinary writers. "West of Washoe" is a fast-paced novel, full of action, gun battles, fist fights, and struggles to escape death far below the surface in a mine. We hear a great deal these days about character-driven plots. That quality seems to be a particular forte of Tim Champlin, his characters are complex and well-developed, carrying the plot to logical conclusion.

"West of Washoe" is a must read for western readers as well as for those who enjoy American historical fiction.