Review by Booklist Review
Huckelbridge (No Beast So Fierce, 2019) examines the life of notorious Wild-West outlaw Belle Starr, whom he characterizes as spirited, and looks at her support of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Afterwards, Starr moved from Missouri to Texas, where she started to develop her reputation as a bandit. She married several times, including to an infamous gangster and to a member of a prominent Cherokee family. She tried to keep her two children away from her criminal enterprises, which strained their relationship. Huckelbridge analyzes tensions in the Wild West between the Union and Confederates, Natives and settlers, and bandits and the law. Although Starr had a reputation locally, she did not become famous until after her death, when notoriety spawned many myths, which Huckelbridge evaluates. Starr was gunned down without witnesses, and Huckelbridge closes by probing the suspects and speculating on the identity of the killer. A satisfying exploration of the life of the sassy bandit queen.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The most notorious of America's female outlaws. Journalist and author Huckelbridge has conjured up one heck of a Wild West tale about a "whiskey-drinking, horse-thieving, gunslinging double widow" that is chock-full of Western lore and nasty desperadoes. Myra Maybelle Shirley, aka Belle Starr, was born in 1848 near Carthage, Missouri, around horses and guns, was educated, and could play the piano. Huckelbridge conjectures--something he does frequently--that Myra "likely" became a Confederate spy. Her brother Bud, a Confederate soldier, was killed, traumatizing the 16-year-old and transforming her into an "outlaw." The family then moved to the true frontier: Texas. "It was during these two powder-burnt decades," writes Huckelbridge, "that the legend of Belle Starr would take root, nourished by that almost mystic Western triad of what would prove to be the woman's three greatest passions: horses, outlaws, and the Indian Territories." In 1866, at 18, she married the criminal Jim Reed, and they moved to Missouri, where they had a daughter and a son. After Reed was killed, she joined a violent Cherokee "galloping nightmare" clan full of killers and in 1880 married another ruthless criminal, Sam Starr. Her new name "twanged like a bullet off spit-shine brass: Belle Starr." The Cherokee gave Sam some land, which they used as a robber's roost for trafficked horses, protection rackets, and whiskey smuggling. They were arrested for horse stealing and locked up. She dodged other arrests. Sam was killed in a gunfight. Another marriage provided protection for her Indian land. At 40, riding her horse sidesaddle early one evening in 1889, Belle was shotgunned twice, dying in her daughter's arms. Huckelbridge explores many "what-ifs," but her killing remains a mystery. The elusive, colorful story of a rare outlaw, told with brio. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
