Flaming Sky: A Novel of the Little Bighorn

In this mildly engaging oater, Murray follows up Thunder in the Dawn, which dealt with events preceding the Battle of Little Bighorn, with a well-researched account of the fate of Custer and others. Former war correspondent Adam Garrett, though posing as a reporter for a St. Louis newspaper, is in reality a spy. He has been sent by Orvil Grant, brother of the President, to dig up dirt on Custer; the ``Boy General,'' a potential political rival of Ulysses S., is carrying on a trumped-up campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne. At the same time, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are uniting those tribes to meet Custer's challenge. Garrett is also trying to locate the cousin of his fiancee, Ann, who, unbeknownst to both Garrett and Ann, has gone over to the Indians and is now a warrior known as Night Hawk. Meanwhile, Ann, sensing impending doom from Garrett's letters, leaves St. Louis to find and save him. As the drama unfolds, each character's destiny will be worked out in the Dakota Territory along the Little Bighorn River. Murray evokes a vivid sense of time and place and offers a provocative new theory about Custer's death, but uneven pacing drags down his otherwise absorbing tale. (Aug.)