Rose of Greenwood
In the late 1800s, forty-year-old cowhand Tip Creston rides into the small midwestern farming town of Greenwood. He trails a pack horse with everything he owns and plans to settle in a house on 320 acres that he recently bought. Neighbors and townspeople seem anxious to check out this stranger. Soon Tip learns of a fifteen-year-old, Rose, daughter of one of his neighbors, who vanished ten years before. No one seems to know why or where Rose went, and the local lawman says he has no leads. One of Tip’s other neighbors, a wheat farmer, suddenly turns up dead, and stories spread about infidelity and shady business practices by the local grain merchant.
Tip has a way with most he meets. They tell him things not shared with anyone else. Tip notices tiny details and thinks deeply about his next steps. He can’t help following the slightest lead or piece of gossip that might solve Rose’s disappearance. Local ruffians make plain he should mind his own business. That eggs him on, and he keeps his handgun close by even while sleeping. His persistence becomes the catalyst for the whole town learning about what happened to Rose and other evils that had been festering in Greenwood.
The historical details, clothes, jargon, and settings ring true. The main story line’s tension builds nicely through Tip’s routine repairs, settling into his new home, and neighborly visits. Despite little action in the first half of the tale, we feel something bigger is coming. This short novel is an easy read for those wanting a quiet western hero.
