Throwback

Cole Clayfield is called a throwback by those who know him. He's a Kentucky mountain man lost in modern times, more comfortable alone in his isolated cabin, hunting with his dogs, or teaching his 10-year-old granddaughter Shelby how to understand nature and respect the earth. Since the death of his beloved wife, though, Clayfield hasn't felt much of anything, except sorry for himself.
When Shelby is suddenly kidnapped at gunpoint by a sociopath named Darnell, all of Clayfield's tracking instincts are shocked into action. But Shelby's other grandfather,a rich lawyer and political wheeler-dealer named Stockton, has his own ideas. Both men are desperate to get their granddaughter back alive, but each has very different ways of going about it.
While Stockton uses his money and hidden influence to trace Darnell's mad, murderous scramble across three states with Shelby and Darnell's girlfriend Hayley, Clayfield scales the rough mountain trail and walks the mean city streets himself, trying to trap Darnell where he least expects it. Only Clayfield is a little older than he used to be, and Darnell is as dangerous and as sharp as they come. He never hesitates to shoot first, and he doesn't care who gets in the way as long as he gets out.
As the pressure surrounding Darnell mounts and the search for the trio grows more violent and intense, Clayfield inches closer and closer to the madman who is holding his granddaughter - praying that it's not too late to save her, and that Darnell pays with his life's blood for what he's done.

The cliche that when city slickers and backwoods yokels clash the yokels always win is older than Li'l Abner. Still, Strunk (Jordon's Wager) manages to reinvigorate them in this tightly focused crime thriller. Cole Clayfield, a modern Kentucky mountain man, has been feeling suicidal since the death of his wife. When his granddaughter Shelby is kidnapped by escaping convict Darnell Pittmore and Pittmore's girlfriend, Clayfield finds more than enough reason to live. He dedicates himself to tracking down the pair and getting Shelby back, stubbornly going off on his own without help from the local cops. Equally stubborn in his own way is Shelby's other grandfather, G.D. Stockton, who thinks that money, political influence and a hired specialist will win his grandchild back; he's willing to offer a million dollars if Shelby is returned unharmed. Strunk knows how to tell a story?his treatment of the grit and courage of a wounded Clayfield is particularly nervy?so readers might not dwell too long on why the FBI doesn't get involved in the case, when word of the kidnapping and the offered ransom is "all over the news." Even with a plot hitch like that, this is one smooth story, as clean and swift as the cleave of a Bowie knife through mountain air.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Two mountain men pursue each other through backwoods Kentucky in a bloody tale of violence and revenge. Strunk's third novel returns to rustic Stanton County. But, instead of the 1930s Depression-era setting of his earlier work (Jordon's Showdown, 1993, etc.), this one is set in the gaudy present and features a smarmy psychokiller hillbilly named Darnell Pittmore, his ditsy girlfriend Hayley, and his inbred weirdo relatives Wormy and Shank, who help him kidnap Shelby Stockton, granddaughter of wealthy patrician lawyer G.D. Stockton, and hold her for a million-dollar ransom. Of course, the only man who can stop Pittmore is Shelby's other grandfather, Cole Clayfield--a kindly, college-educated mountain man who makes furniture in his spare time, communes with his dogs, and is tough enough to drink the blood of a freshly killed raccoon, soft enough to quote The Rub iy t, weak enough to remain haunted by his wife's tragic hit- and-run death, and man enough to hunt Pittmore down to his trashy boondocks lair. Such a task is more easily imagined than accomplished: In the novel's best scene, Clayfield, wounded and left for dead by Pittmore, hacks off a mangled finger and uses it to snare a gullible raccoon, which he then skillfully butchers, roasts, and devours, thus surviving until help arrives. Mostly, though, the story meanders downhill; on the one hand, Clayfield blunders badly in unlikely ways; on the other, he miraculously persuades Pittmore to give him back his arsenal of guns and his trusty pickup truck so that he can fetch the ransom money from G.D. Stockton. You don't have to be mountain-born to realize that such concessions make it considerably easier for your sworn enemy to kill you. Strunk tries to balance his macho violence with lessons on family values and homespun wisdom, but plot weaknesses make Clayfield's sensitive homilies hard to buy. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Amoral and violent, Darnell Pittmore escapes on his way to court by seizing ten-year-old Shelby Stockton as hostage. Shelby's grandfathers?wealthy businessman/ lawyer G.D. Stockton and mountain man Cole Clayfield?set out to rescue her, each in his own way. Throughout the rugged mountain country of Kentucky and southern Ohio, hunters and quarry fight their desperate battles with the life of the little girl as the ultimate prize. While Stockton relies upon his wealth and contacts, Clayfield calls upon his lifetime of wilderness skills and Shelby uses her wits and courage to good advantage. The story rapidly involves the reader through unexpected plot twists and the author's portrayal of Clayfield as a believable man, aging, battling his own demons, all too human and vulnerable to the terrible pains inflicted by a singularly evil villain. From the author of Jordon's Wager (Walker, 1991); recommended for popular collections.?Elsa Pendleton, Ridgecrest, Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.