The Cry of the Hawk

Returning to his Missouri farm after years spent serving on the western frontier in a Yankee uniform, Jonah Hook finds it deserted, and he sets off for the western frontier again to find his wife and children

Set primarily on the high plains during the 1860s, this novel has the epic sweep of the frontier built into it. Unfortunately, Johnston (the Sons of the Plains trilogy) relies too much on a facile and overfamiliar style. Add to this the overly graphic descriptions of violence, and readers will recognize a genre that seems especially popular these days: the sensational western. The novel opens in the year 1908, with a newspaper reporter Nate Deidecker seeking out Jonah Hook, an aged scout, Indian fighter and buffalo hunter. Deidecker has been writing up firsthand accounts of the Old West and intends to add Hook's to his series. Hook readily agrees, and the narrative moves from its frame to its main canvas. Alas, Hook's story is also conveyed in the third person, thus depriving the reader of the storytelling aspect which, supposedly, Deidecker is privileged to hear. The plot concerns Hook's search for his family--abducted by a marauding band of Mormons--after he serves a tour of duty as a "galvanized" Union soldier (a captured Confederate who joined the Union Army to serve on the frontier). As we follow Hook's bloody adventures, however, the kidnapping becomes almost submerged and is only partially, and all too quickly, resolved in the end. Perhaps Johnston is planning a sequel; certainly the unsatisfying conclusion seems to point in that direction.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Western potboiler that will stain the reader with grease, blood, and smoke. Jonah Hook, Confederate soldier, gains an early release from a befouled Union prison by signing up for a year as a ``galvanized Yankee'' to fight Indians on the frontier. Meanwhile, his wife and three children, waiting for him at home in backwoods Missouri, are abducted by the ``Avenging Angels'' of Brigham Young, out sweeping the land to rid it of threatening ``Gentiles'' but showing much more aptitude for raping, killing, and looting. The angels sell Hook's boys to Comancheros and save Hattie, the daughter, for future deflowering by a wealthy Mormon buyer. The crazed leader of the pack, Jubilee Usher, takes Gritta, the wife, as a concubine. While she and Hattie, both kept on a steady dose of laudanum, tour the countryside with the depraved Mormons, the depraved white men fight the depraved Indians, allowing Jonah to meet famous scouts and soldiers like Jim Bridger and George Custer. The Indians and soldiers skirmish, graphically slashing and scalping and creatively mutilating each other. Jonah finally gets his release, only to return home and find a vacant ruined homestead. He and cousin Artus set off to search for the family. Along the way, Jonah kills buffalo for the railroad, fights Indians again, and falls for Grass Singing, an Indian prostitute. He finally locates the Mormon angels and...some issues won't be resolved until the sequel. In his fast-paced but uneven latest, Johnston (Carry the Wind, 1982, etc.) magnifies the violence and stench of the Old West. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

To get out of the Union prison at Rock Island, Illinois, Confederate Jonah Hook volunteers to go West and fight Indians as a "galvanized Yankee." When the Civil War and his service for the hated North end, he returns home to find that his family has been abducted by a roaming band of Mormon Danites. Jonah's turbulent search for them over the Western plains develops into a stunning narrative of violent life on the frontier. Veteran wilderness novelist Johnston ( Borderlords , Bantam, 1986) has struck a rare balance, portraying historical facts with a writer's imagination so that well-known events and historical figures seem real. Reminiscent of Alan Le May's The Searchers (1954), on which John Ford's movie is based, this open-ended book hints at subsequent volumes. This is highly recommended for most fiction collections.
- Robert Jordan, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.