Critics' Opinion:
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Published Feb 2008
384 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publication Information
Set in 1871 in the unforgiving wasteland of the Arizona Territory, Shavetail is the story of Private Ned Thorne, a seventeen-year-old boy from Connecticut who has lied about his age to join the Army. On the run from a shameful past, Ned is desperate to prove his worth -- to his superiors, to his family, and most of all, to himself. Young and troubled, Ned is as green and stubborn as a "shavetail," the soldiers' term for a dangerous, untrained mule.
To endure in this world, Ned must not only follow the orders of the camp's captain, Robert Franklin, but also submit to the cruel manipulations of Obediah Brickner, the camp's mule driver. Both Franklin and Brickner have been damaged by their long military service, both consider themselves able to survive the dangers of the desert - floods, scorpions, snakes, and Indians - and both imperil Ned.
"Cobb, in his first novel since his debut (Crazy Heart, 1987), ably recreates the American frontier. Tender and action-packed, a historical western with everything but the ending." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Starred Review." - Library Journal.
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