Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1735911 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 247 pages

Customer Reviews

enjoyable Depression Era romantic crime caper
Thirty nine years old con artist Sam Ransom leaves California in a hurry before he is locked away or beaten to death by a hitman hired by a swindled investor. Besides he has his next scheme set in depression dying Shakespeare, New Mexico where the silver mines no longer work. The townsfolk look at Sam as a savior.

Also new to town is widow Lett Halsy, a former minor, who inherited the Roxy Jay bar and brothel and Wesley the dog from his late brother Howard. The bartender Jason has allowed locals to run up a tab while the brothel has one woman left fortyish Delight Jones. Sam hires Lett to run the mining operation. However, as Lett falls in love with Delight and takes two kids under his wings, he begins to have doubts about Sam's operation even when they find a rich vein of gold and silver.

This is an enjoyable Depression Era romantic crime caper. Lett is a likable person who struggles to tell Delight how he feels about her; she shares his love, but also feels unworthy of such a kind soul. The support cast is strong as they provide refreshing insight into how desperate people became during the Depression in a small out of the way place as normally big cities have been featured in most books and movies. Although Sam is rotten to the core, fans will enjoy his operation as THE MAN WHO KILLED SHAKESPEARE with his Hoover prosperity is around the corner mining ruse.

Harriet Klausner

It only thinks it's clever
I'll keep it brief. I knew there was a problem as I read the opening conversation of the book. One of the characters states the occupation of a recently-deceased local bigwig to other townsfolk. Everyone in the room is a local, and they all personally knew this man... the only reason the character made this statement was for the benefit of the reader.

It was at that moment I realized Ken Hodgson was going to struggle.

There's not a twist you won't see coming as though you had a high-powered telescope, and no quirk is left unexplored. Why? Apparently quirkiness needs no excuse. Not a single moment is straightforward if Hodgson can think of some colorful language or useless plot element to throw in, even if it makes no sense whatsoever. If he can't think of anything, though, he'll probably just throw some facts your way. It is a short novel, after all. Apparently there was no room for finesse. Only quirk and color.

And that brevity is its only saving grace. At least you won't lose much of your life on if you read it.

But if I were you, I wouldn't.

A truly quirky and entertaining read, with something in it for everyone
The small mining town of Shakespeare, New Mexico, had seen better days by the time Lett Halsy arrived there in 1932. The local mines had played out years before, and that darned Depression and Prohibition sure made everything worse. Lett just inherited the Roxy Jay Saloon, and it came complete with a bartender, a snake-killing dog, five hotel cabins out back, and one lady of the evening, Delight Jones. He was still trying to adjust to this new situation when Sam Ransom swept into town. Sam was a wealthy mining speculator, or so he said. He intended to open up the old Last Chance mine and get it going again and in doing so, save the town. Hurray! When Sam learned that Lett had mining experience, he immediately hired him as his mine manager.

While the readers know that Sam is nothing but a con artist, there's no way we can warn Lett and Delight and the guys at the Roxy Jay. We merely have to hope beyond hope that they will see through him and come out unscathed on the other side. As the plot progresses, things get a bit more complicated. Delight and Lett become good friends, and the man is afraid to ask her to give up her profession for him. Sam gets ever more caught in the tangled web he's woven. Elmore might know where the real Lost Dutchman mine is, but he's not talking. Lett hires Joel Kay as an additional miner when he catches sight of Melissa and Avery, Joel's two hungry and dirty children. And McTavish and Bulldog and Jake just keep plodding on, day after day, just like they did before Ransom got there.

So this book is historical fiction, and a western, sort of, and a romance, sort of, and above all, a comedy of errors. And as you read it, you find yourself hoping that the bad guy *really* gets what's coming to him and that Good will eventually prevail. With so many male characters to choose from: which one has the capacity to shut down the town, as the book title suggests? You have to keep on reading to find out! What's even better is to pick up a road atlas afterward and discover that there really *is* a ghost town called Shakespeare in New Mexico. It makes you wonder ...