Description:
Renowned for violence and lawlessness, the American frontier was in reality a safe and orderly region, at least by 19th-century standards. Alcoholism and suicide were persistent troubles, and, to be sure, the occasional murder or crime against property troubled the populace. Still, such things did not happen often, and when they did, justice was swift and punishment severe. Frank Grigware, the protagonist of Joe Jackson's swift-moving Leavenworth Train, learned all this the hard way. Not particularly bright, plagued by hard luck, the young man devoted himself to petty thievery, scratching out a dishonest living in the rough mining towns of the Northwest. His fortunes turned still worse when he fell into the company of a gang of suspected train robbers. Charged as an accomplice to their crimes on what Jackson considers to be less than solid evidence, he was packed off to the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary to serve a long sentence. He didn't remain behind bars for long, however. He and three fellow convicts escaped by hijacking a supply train, and Grigware kept running until he reached Canada, where he took up residence and lived out a long life. His identity was eventually revealed, and American officials--among them J. Edgar Hoover--demanded to have him returned. To reveal who won would spoil Jackson's story. In telling it, Jackson relies heavily on imagined dialogue, and his prose is sometimes overly mannered ("instead of a cave of gold, they found a grimy cell," "everyone danced Death's crazy reel"). Still, his tale is full of unlikely twists that keep it moving along nicely, and fans of Western history and true crime alike will enjoy reading it. --Gregory McNamee
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