Basque Moon: A Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery - Tapa dura

Cowboys, sheepherders, and moonshiners form a volatile mix in 1920s Idaho. Independent-minded Nellie Burns (Moonshadows, 2015) left her Chicago home hoping to make a living as a photographer in what is still the wide-open West. Planning to take some pictures to sell to the railroad for brochures, she drives with her dog, Moonshine, to the mountains to meet sheep rancher Gwynn Campbell, who's taking her and Basque sheepherder Alphonso to his sheep camp to replace Domingo, a herder reportedly gone round the bend from loneliness. They arrive to find Domingo long dead, having been badly beaten and with a gunshot wound in his head. With no sheriff in the area, Campbell goes to fetch Nell's friend, the Basque sheriff known as Azgo, leaving Nell, Moonie, and Alphonso at the camp. Nell and her dog have already had a run-in with a cowboy, or maybe a moonshiner, and his dog. Given the tension between the cowmen, the sheep owners, and the dangerous moonshiners hidden in the hills, it's hard to know whom to trust. Even lovely Pearl, who works in a saloon, often flirts with men although she's supposedly married. When Nell is kidnapped, she has to depend on Pearl to help her escape. The pair have some wild adventures while Nell tries to untangle a knotty puzzle and stay alive. Weston's second is a rip-roaring yarn that enchants with beguiling descriptions of the beauty of the Idaho wilderness.
---Kirkus Review

In the summer of 1923, photographer Nellie Burns accepts an assignment to take scenic photos for railroad travel brochures. She arranges to spend several weeks operating out of a sheep camp deep in the mountains. But when she and her dog, Moonshine, arrive at the camp with the sheep rancher and relief sheepherder, they discover the shepherd on duty has been murdered. Nellie is caught in the middle of long-standing rivalries among sheep men and cattlemen, revenuers and moonshiners, and those promoting the region s burgeoning tourist industry. Weston does a good job evoking the wild beauty of Idaho s Sawtooth Range, and Nellie is a likable protagonist even though she is exasperatingly naive, jumping headlong into dangerous situations without considering the consequences. The ending offers a promising direction for subsequent installments.
---Publishers Weekly"

Nellie Burns, photographer, and her Labrador dog, Moonshine, travel with sheep rancher Gwynn Campbell and his Basque sheepherder to the Stanley Basin of central Idaho. Nellie plans to photograph scenes for a railroad’s brochures to lure tourists to the West. When they arrive at the sheep camp, they discover the current herder is dead.

Nellie’s curiosity and photography lead her to a moonshine still and then a dash up a forested mountain. Nellie and Moonshine confront the greatest challenges yet to their courage and ingenuity when they face a range war and a ruthless killer.

Basque Moon is an exciting and authentic story of western conflicts in the 1920s. Nellie must dig deep to restore her faith in herself and her chosen profession.