Saving Laura

Set in 1979, this appealing thriller from Satterfield (The River’s Song) tracks the efforts of 21-year-old Bobby Lee Shelby to save his sweetheart, Laura, from a malevolent drug lord. The polite, soft-spoken Shelby is in immediate jeopardy. Not only has he just stolen $75,000 and 11 pounds of cocaine from Laura’s captor—Aspen, Colo.’s leading cocaine dealer—but he has made himself a wanted man by inadvertently becoming involved with two gun-happy teenagers. Shelby hides out in his family’s remote cabin and utilizes his survivalist skills to keep ahead of the law. A colorful and reclusive neighbor who thumbs his nose at the law and a well-known writer whom Shelby encounters help him formulate a rescue plan. Shelby’s journey through the rural West is a heroic quest in which all his noble qualities come to the fore. As an undercover DEA operative says to him with grudging respect, “Just don’t go thinkin’ you’re the fucking Lone Ranger.” But of course he does. (June)