The Case of the Deadly Desperados

P.K.'s story opens when a gang of outlaws kills his foster parents and he escapes with his "Destiny," which turns out to be a deed to a mine worth millions. P.K. has trouble showing emotion and reading people, a dual problem that keeps getting him in trouble. The strongly voiced account succeeds as a rousing adventure that promises more action in a future installment. Glos.

"My name is P.K. Pinkerton and before this day is over I will be dead." And so begins a bang-up series starter, told in flashback by young P.K. Pinkerton. P.K.’s story opens when a gang of outlaws, dressed as Indians, kills his foster parents. P.K., who is half Sioux, escapes, but not without a medicine bag his foster ma instructs him to take before she dies and which holds his "Destiny." He jumps a stagecoach and heads for Virginia City, which is, according to P.K.’s foster pa, "the vilest place on earth," populated with all kinds of evil folk: "Desperados, Gamblers, Gunmen & Lawyers." Although he’s whip smart, the counterbalance to P.K.’s intelligence is the "Thorn in his side": i.e., he seems to have what we would now call Asperger’s. He has trouble showing emotion and reading people, a dual problem that keeps getting him in trouble. On his arrival, P.K. meets one Belle Donne, a prostitute with a heart of coal; after what appears to be an act of kindness she robs him of his Destiny. That Destiny is the deed to a mine worth millions, according to newspaperman Sam Clemens. Although the conceit of the story (that P.K. scribbled down this well-paced narrative during a few hours hiding out in a mine shaft) doesn’t quite work, his strongly voiced account succeeds as a rousing adventure that promises more action in another installment just around the corner. Appended with a glossary of nineteenth-century terms. betty carter