Booklist Review

When a load of highly prized Krag rifles disappears from James Whitlaw's train line, management needs a fall guy and decides--with no proof--that Whitlaw was responsible. He desperately wants to find the rifles to clear his name. Tommy Gasheen, a volunteer in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, also wants the rifles to arm his group in its ongoing struggle against the occupying Brits. The two are thrown together after a raid across the Arizona border by Pancho Villa's army. Gasheen and Whitlaw each has his own reasons for finding the weaponry, and they decide their odds are better as a team; they will settle the fate of the guns after they find them. Champlin, an accomplished western author, takes a particularly lawless time in American history and uses it as a backdrop for a character-driven adventure in which personal vindication is at odds with more significant issues of freedom and revolution. This is more than a western and should appeal to all historical-fiction readers. --Wes Lukowsky Copyright 2003 Booklist