In this sequel to Moon Medicine
, Blakely continues the frontier adventures of Honore Greenwood, a French émigré renamed Plenty Man by his adopted Comanche tribe. From 1853 to 1868, he goes from Comanche warrior to New Mexico Civil War volunteer, scouting for his beloved friend Kit Carson, and then back to the Comanche. When he isn't tricking other gamblers or tribesmen, Plenty Man, who narrates, is in the company of famous frontier figures like Carson and Chief Quanah Parker and at important battles like Valverde, in New Mexico, and Adobe Walls, in Texas, giving him a wide angle on the roots and repercussions of the Indian wars. He is fiercely loyal to Kit and to his Comanche family both—a tragedy in the making as, inevitably, Kit and Comanche line up on opposite sides of the battlefield. Though Blakely's two Plenty Man novels follow closely the footsteps of Thomas Berger's 1964 novel Little Big Man
, a story this funny, suspenseful and affecting can do without an original premise. (June)
