Minneapolis Star Tribune November 14, 2010
STOLEN HORSES
By Dan O’Brien (University of Nebraska Press, 328 pages, $20, trade paperback)
Author Dan O’Brien is well known for his 2001 memoir, “Buffalo for the Broken Heart,” about a life-changing conversion of his Black Hills cattle ranch to raising buffalo. His other books include two historical novels set in the West. Now, he is out with a contemporary novel, “Stolen Horses,” set in a small fictional Nebraska town.
This book establishes him as an important literary voice of the West, and deserves a place on the bookshelf next to the works of Annie Proulx, Thomas McGuane and Wallace Stegner. “Stolen Horses” is a tale of simmering conflict between the old and new West. The town of McDermot, Neb., has become a magnet for people escaping the big city, and some of the newcomers bring fresh greed and opportunism to a community with a nearly forgotten history of horse thievery and murder. When a small-town journalist tries to expose the new wrongs, the conflict erupts with deadly consequences.
DAVID SHAFFER, Business reporter/editor