Carolyn Cushman Reviews An Easy Death by Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris, An Easy Death (Saga Press 978-1-4814-9492-2, $26.99, 306pp, hc) October 2018.
Harris turns to a different sort of Wild West set in an alternate-history world in which the US was shattered by the assassination of FDR and by the Great Depression. Sharpshooter Lizbeth “Gunnie” Rose lives in the country of Texoma, a rough, near-lawless place barely hanging on between Mexico and New America, where gunslingers wish each other “an easy death” as a friendly farewell. Lizbeth works jobs like escorting farmer families north to safety in New America, but bandits and romance gone wrong mess up her crew, leaving her in need of a new job, so she agrees to work for two grigori – Russian wizards from the Holy Russian Empire on the West Coast – wanting a local guide, a job that has secret personal import for Lizbeth. They end up on a road trip to Mexico, pursued by assassins mundane and magical, with lots of secrets revealed along the way. It’s a thrill ride through a world transformed by magic and altered politics, with an excellent kick-ass guide in Gunnie Rose, making this a strong start to a new series.
Carolyn F. Cushman, Senior Editor, has worked for Locus since 1985, the longest of any of the current staff, and handles our in-house books database, writes our New and Notable section, and does the monthly Books Received column. She is a graduate of Western Washington University with a degree in English. She published a fantasy novel, Witch and Wombat, in 1994.
This review and more like it in the September 2018 issue of Locus.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
