Custer’s Gold
Lubetkin has transformed a prodigious amount of research about the greater Yellowstone region of the 1870s into a sprawling, and immensely satisfying, off-kilter Western that will keep readers mesmerized throughout the many windings of its plots and sub-plots. The year is 1873, and “tenderfoot engineer” Edward “Ned” Jordan is working for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He toils under the flinty, uncompromising leadership of former Confederate soldier Tom Rosser, who has discovered the location of a secret cache of gold. The secret of this gold is one he is determined to keep from his old friend and former Civil War opponent, George Armstrong Custer, who has been sent with his Seventh Cavalry to protect the surveyors from the menace of Sitting Bull and his warriors.
Lubetkin adds more and more complexity as his story unfolds, and all of it is told with a narrative gusto that kept me fascinated; especially by the rich dynamic between Custer and Rosser, who yearned to beat each other during their Civil War clashes and still have a deeply complex relationship even now, years later. Lubetkin has written works of history about Custer, and in choosing Ned Jordan as his approachable, relatable narrator for the bulk of his tale, he shifts expertly to a fictional recreation of the famous general and his times. Highly recommended.
