REVIEW: The Yeggman’s Apprentice by CK Crigger
IT’S 1905 IN BUTTE, MONTANA AND SPARKS ARE FLYING
A fearless safecracking heroine and a hero who’s a wanted man team up to stop a law firm full of embezzlers. But there’s a problem…a hired killer will chase them all the way across Montana to shut them up.The goal now: make it out of Montana alive!
Dear Ms. Crigger,
Well, it has been awhile since I’ve read one of your books. Looking back over past reviews, I think I started reading the first one shortly after Dear Author was started. ::pauses to think how long ago this was:: Yep, high time to start reading more.
Wilkie Van Slyke and her “uncle” (even she doesn’t know if they are true blood relations) are on a job which is more or less ethically legal. They have been been asked to break into the bank safe by the legal firm representing the clients whose files are to be retrieved. When Jameson isn’t able to do the job himself, Wilkie goes it alone and is thrilled with not only her success in cracking the safe but in eluding some unexpected company at the bank. When examined, Wilkie discovers something about the files.
The next morning, a still ill Jameson sends her to collect what they’re owed so they can zip out of town. Only Wilkie has to bluff her way out of the lawyer’s office, sure now that something isn’t right. Before she knows it, she’s on the run with a complete stranger, hanging onto him on the back of his Triumph motorcycle with several people after them. Soon safe cracking is the least of her worries as they’re suspected of murder and they’ve got the real ruthless murderer on their trail.
This is actually a fairly short novel but only because it focuses strictly on the action and has no sub-plots. It ends with a maybe romance but most of the story is about Wilkie and Hix on the run and trying to stay alive. Things are pretty much non-stop with twists and turns, ups and downs and barely a moment for the MCs or reader to catch a breath before the next thing happens. I was exhausted reading it and I wasn’t hiking across a lot of Montana, dodging bullets, beatings, and killers all the way.
The plot makes sense but by the end, I was left with the feeling that the killer was mainly sticking to Wilkie and Hix more for the pleasure of killing than for whatever monetary reward involved. Neither MC is a hardened criminal so it makes sense that they let down their guards a few times and do some things that are a little silly in retrospect. At one point I was uneasy about how some unintentional victims of violence along the way seemed to have been brushed aside in the things the MC were concerned about but later on this is addressed. I would have liked to see romance along the way but given how often these two think of each other while separated and how determined they are to get the other out of danger, I guess the feelings were building all along. B-
~Jayne
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