Bad News for Outlaws

Bass Reeves's life is the stuff from which legends are made. Born a slave, he escaped to Indian Territory (now known as Oklahoma), captured over three thousand men and women as a deputy U.S. marshal, and spent his few years of retirement on a small-town police force. Reeves, as a fellow sharpshooter once said, 'could shoot the left hind leg off a contented fly sitting on a mule's ear at a hundred yards and never ruffle a hair, ' and was a man of such honor that he arrested his own son for murder. This captivating biography, told in language as colorful as Reeves's career, grabs readers with an 1884 gunfight, then flashes back to Reeves's early life and continues until his death. Section headings ('Slave Days, 1840s-1860s'; 'Freedom and Family, Late 1860s-1874') underscore the chronology, while boldfaced subheadings provide a textbook lesson on how topic sentences work. Typically, the subheadings offer an opinion ('Bass was respected, and he was hated') followed by a paragraph or two of supporting information. Accentuated with a palette knife, Christie's sharply textured paintings create an impressionist background of an unformed land as well as detailed portraits of this multi-dimensional individual, his bold black hat conveying unmistakable authority. Includes documentation, a glossary, a timeline, recommended readings and bibliography, and historical author notes. b.c. --The Horn Book Magazine-- "Journal"