Hell’s Half-Acre
In 1857, six-year-old Kate lives with her father in “borrowed rooms” while traveling through towns southwest of Chicago. While her papa is busy gambling, she learns by reading magazines and novels from the hotels’ collections and asking the other guests and bellhops about the meanings of words. However, one morning in Denver, her father hands her over to a stranger, whispering that she should play along as if the stranger has won her in a card game, and he will come soon for her. The stranger deposits Kate with Almira – a harlot – in a mining camp. Kate assists Almira in her unsavory activities while waiting for her father. Even when two marshals come around investigating a disappearance, Kate doesn’t speak up, for she’d been told by her papa never to cooperate with the law.
In 1870, Kate and Almira meet the Benders, an older man and his son. Coming to an arrangement, they decide to operate a grocery and an inn near Cherryvale, Kansas. The Benders claim a strategic location close to the Osage Trail. However, they have other motives besides homesteading and operating a B&B.
Nicastro has based this novel on the true crimes committed by the so-dubbed “Bloody Benders, America’s first serial killers.” Although the particulars of the gruesome murders, discovered in 1873 as if at a “Hell’s half-acre,” are well recorded, the Benders’ origin and their subsequent disappearance are mysteries. Even the museum erected at the site has been taken down, replaced by a plaque. Nicastro has reconstructed Kate’s story well, and although it’s captivatingly written, with all of the details, prairie life, and dialogue of the period, its enjoyment requires suspension of disbelief. This Western’s plot straddles the Civil War period, and the use of flashbacks keeps the mystery riveting. A surprise ending awaits readers. Recommended.
