From Publishers Weekly
Ranger Sam O'Ballivan, working undercover as a schoolteacher to capture a dangerous band of train robbers and rustlers in the tiny border town of Haven, Ariz., finds himself a captive of love in this new crowd pleaser from Miller. Dealing with young troublemaker Terran Chancelor leads Sam to meet Terran's fiercely protective sister, Maddie, postmistress and mercantile store manager, who immediately attracts his attention and raises his ire. Sam's increasing involvement with his students leads him to the brutally powerful Donagher family, which holds Maddie in financial peril and may be hiding participation in the robber gang. When Sam receives a tip that the bandits are set to rob a train at a distant location, he's loathe to respond and leave Maddie and Terran undefended against the volatile Donagher sons. As the plot accelerates, personal tragedies are revealed, the real villains are punished and Maddie and Sam share an into-the-sunset finale—not many surprises, but Miller's prose is smart, and her tough Eastwoodian cowboy cuts a sharp, unexpectedly funny figure in a classroom full of rambunctious frontier kids.
(June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In an attempt to stop a murderous band of outlaws who have been robbing trains and rustling cattle, ranger Sam O'Ballivan goes undercover as a schoolteacher in the Arizona Territory, where law enforcement is scarce in 1903. He soon meets Maddie, who runs the general store owned by the despicable Mungo Donagher, who pretty much owns the entire town. Sam suspects Mungo's sons of being part of the outlaw gang and knows that his seductive young wife is nothing but trouble. Besides, Sam is fighting a strong attraction to Maddie even though he has an "understanding" with a woman back home. An explosive train robbery, the rescue of a teenage prostitute, and Mungo's slaying of his own son--who was caught in bed with his wife--keep the action moving along in this old-fashioned western romance complete with good guys and bad, good women and bad, and some who look bad but are good.
Diana Tixier HeraldCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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