Tempered Iron

In 1878, teenager Davy Bates treks to New Mexico from New Hampshire to ask for his uncle Jack Tyson's help in locating his younger brother Sam. Jack and Davy find and lose Sam in Colorado, have a lethal run-in with a bank robber and return to New Mexico where Sam has apparently torched Jack's cabin. Davy and Sam's final confrontation proves fatal for one of them, and the book ends with Jack about to go off on another quest. Among the problems with mystery writer Sherman's ( The White Mountain Murders ) western are such anachronisms as ``slow motion'' and ``the flip side of his brother,'' and overripe writing: ``He fired three times in a thunderous explosion of bullets, the coagulated noise belying the bewildering swiftness of the shots.'' As a strong, silent hero, Jack is a stereotype. (Dec.)