The Wolf's Cub

Wyatt Earp's bastard son Nathan Blaylock, Nathan's gunslinging comrade Jim Riley and the unscrupulous Rebel veteran Doc Hennison, purveyor of semi-poisonous snake oil, stride back into action in this splendidly original sequel to The Winter Wolf. Forget the unlikely story line (it involves stealing guns from a frozen Canadian outpost, a civil war in Panama, a crooked scheme to lay railroads across Alaska and Nathan's long-lost son). This is a character-driven piece with some of the most colorful personalities to grace the pages of a formula western in this decade. Perhaps the best among these is Riley, whose frontier wit and wisdom balance wonderfully against Doc's buffoonery. The Panamanian revolutionary Marta combines fierce patriotism with personal vengeance and emerges as a credible, if conventionally alluring, frontier heroine. Even minor characters are well developed--among them the treacherous Alaskan wilderness itself. Parry's prose is vivid and imaginative, his dialogue authentic (though more vigilant editing would have prevented such neologisms as ""sounds like a plan"" and ""yeah, right""). In spite of the formula's strictures, this novel rises far above the common expectations for a Yukon yarn. (Nov.)