Last seen in 2005's Resurrecting Langston Blue
, CJ Floyd has retired from bail bonding and bounty hunting, and opened a collectibles store in Denver with the help of a friend and fellow antiques dealer, Lenny McCabe. The straight and narrow life is clearly not for CJ, no matter how much he and his fiancée, Mavis Sundee, might wish otherwise. He buys stolen books from a man who's shot dead minutes later, gets caught up in the search for the killer and a $1-million daguerreotype that was in one of the books, and then learns his old nemesis, Celeste Deepstream, is still on his trail, seeking revenge for her brother's death. Greer layers on the complexity up to the very end, drawing deeply on Old West history and the many facets of African-American life in cowboy country to develop rich characters and plot lines; even if you get the big picture early on, it's worth finishing for the subtle details. Several loose ends suggest further sequels. (Oct.)
