Cannon's Revenge

This slender historical novel, sixth in the Jefferson Birch series, following Outlaw's Fortune, is more western than mystery. Part-time investigator and cowboy Jefferson Birch joins his sometime boss Arthur Tisdale to search for the missing two-year-old daughter of Harold Dane, editor of the Deadwood Gazette in Colorado. Little Hannah has been abducted by the father of a young man who was arrested and hanged for murder because of a stand Dane took in his paper. Birch and Tisdale find the kidnapper, who chooses to die without telling them where Hannah is. Then Birch's job is to locate the child in the expanses of Wild West Colorado before her trail becomes too cold to follow. Plodding dialogue and predictable characters prevent this tale from packing much of a punch. (Jan.)