PEOPLE OF THE SUN

A weary ranch hand fights to win full custody of his son in Kelly’s fifth spirituality-tinged Western in a series.

It’s 2010, and Guy Thornton is again working at an Arizona ranch, cleaning stables and tending bar, saving up money for his 15-year-old son Trick Delchay’s future. Trick has followed in Guy’s bootprints by becoming a promising bull rider, and his dad has encouraged him by helping him train. However, Guy is still caught up in a custody battle with Trick’s foster parents, the Merricks, and it’s one that he’s losing. Help arrives in the form of Star Clarke, an author, psychic medium, and life coach who claims she was sent to aid Guy by the spirit of Trick’s deceased mother, Sally: “She said, ‘Help him.’ That’s all. Just those two words,” Star tells Guy. “I thought at first she meant I was to help Trick—he was always her primary concern.…Now, though, well, now I think it’s you she means.” This plotline is intercut with an earlier story, set in 2005, of Guy’s trip across Arizona’s Mogollon Rim, on his journey to meet his son for the first time—shortly after he’d used violence to protect someone else. Interspersed among these storylines are sections narrated by Sally, a Yavapai woman, who tells her side of things from beyond the grave. Over the course of this novel, Kelly’s prose is rich and observant, whether she’s writing about the landscape, people, or animals, as when Guy observes his beloved mare, Sweet Pea, highlighting their connection: “Guy was glad he’d stopped when he did the night before because in the dark he probably wouldn’t have noticed Sweet Pea’s lifted head, the blowing nostrils, that cued him to slow down.” The book’s rather fragmented structure and leisurely pace may test the patience of some readers. However, those who know Kelly’s peculiar Western magic from previous novels will be happy to settle into this latest installment.

A meditative contemporary tale about moving on and letting go.