Eye of the Hawk

Anyone who can't quickly predict how this horse opera will end isn't paying attention. A lawman with the unlikely name of Ethan Torregrossa is bushwhacked while enjoying an after-dinner cigar on a riverboat's deck. Scrambling ashore, he collapses, exhausted on the banks of the muddy Mississippi. When he awakens, Torregrossa, aka Hawk, has no idea who he is or where he's from, only a vague notion that he's a gunfighter and was bound for Stillwater on some mission of noblesse oblige. He soon runs across a friendly rustic who equips him with a fine steed and excellent armaments, which prove useful when he rescues Danny, his soon-to-be-faithful sidekick, from a lynch mob led by Danny's own stepfather. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the lovely tomboy Rona Burr is mourning the death of her elder brother, who has been done in by nefarious villains out to ruin their freighting business. Rona clings to one forlorn hope: that the gunfighter (guess who?) her brother tried to hire will indeed arrive to save her from the clutches of Sam Reo, an avaricious entrepreneur who has designs on the business and Rona herself. Hawk and Danny arrive on the scene in the nick of time, pausing only to slay various prairie scum and saloon slime. With his memory now fully recovered, Hawk sets out to secure Rona's business and bring law and order to Sweetwater and a happy ending for Rona. Though solidly told, the tale seems to have been drawn from 1950s prime-time TV. The only surprise for the reader may be Bechko's identity; she is one of the few women writing traditional westerns. (Feb.)