Iron star

In this captivating sequel to 1983's Mister St. John, Estleman (the Amos Walker series) delivers a top-notch western that deromanticizes its own genre. In 1926, former Pinkerton operative Emmett Rawlings has retired to Minnesota to focus his energies on publishing a history of the detective agency. Though Rawlings received permission from his boss for the project--and already spent the advance--the agency's attorney has threatened legal action if he proceeds. Desperate for cash, Rawlings accepts an invitation from flailing western movie star Buck Jones to collaborate on a film about Rawlings's old colleague, Deputy U.S. Marshal Iron St. John. Twenty years earlier, St. John published a tight-lipped memoir, but Jones knows there's more to the story, and Rawlings might be the man to tell it. After all, he accompanied St. John on his final manhunt: the pursuit of the fugitive bank-robbing Buckner gang. Hoping to turn Rawlings's recollections into a rip-roaring screenplay that will jump-start his career, Jones instead learns that the Old West was grittier, less heroic, and quite a bit bloodier than he'd imagined. Estleman affectionately takes an axe to the tropes on which he built his career while delivering a gripping story in its own right. This finds a crime fiction legend working in a delightful new register. (June)