Book Review: The Assassination of Governor Boggs, by Rod Miller

I interviewed author Rod Miller on this blog in October of 2007. His list of works was quite impressive at that time, and he's added several new works since then, which you can read about on his website.

Today, I'm reviewing his new historical novel, The Assassination of Governor Boggs, which was recently released by Bonneville Books. If you read the interview, you'll note that at that time, he had just got his mind around how to tell this story. Well, tell it he does, and in a rip-snorting fashion!

From the back cover:

After an attempted assassination, Governor Lilburn Boggs couldn't prove who'd taken a shot at him, leaving the identity of his assailant a mystery. Twenty-five years later and after the passing of Gov. Boggs, Pinkerton Detective Calvin Pogue has been hired by the Boggs family to open this cold case and find out the truth about the assassin. From Missouri to California and into the heart of the Utah Territory, Detective Pogue relentlessly seeks clues that lead him to the legendary Mormon gunman Porter Rockwell--who still isn't making things easy for anyone!

Join Detective Pogue as he steps into this hair-raising mystery and tracks down Gov. Boggs's enemies and friends to a finale you won't believe.

This fast-paced historical mystery had me turning pages as quickly as I could to keep up with the story of a war-crippled Pinkerton detective traveling throughout the American West, seeking clues in this case gone cold. The folks he meets, many of whom are legends themselves, recount their memories of the events of the incomplete assassination, each in his own voice and way, whether they were a sheriff, an attorney, or a passer-by.

In that time, when the Mormon Church was getting its start and trying to survive among neighbors who didn't much like them--and vice versa--government on the frontier pretty much ignored the written law and took it into their own hands in order to shake loose an irritating burr under their saddle: a large, united body of folks with strange beliefs and ways. Governor Boggs hated the Mormons, and made no secret of that fact, acting on his hate in some pretty bizarre pronouncements and orders. In return, the Mormons, under his persecution, returned the emotion. No wonder everything came together with an attempt upon his life.

Rod Miller's decisive writing clearly illuminates this bitter period of the American experience. Anyone who wonders about the early Mormon Church, the Missouri period, or life on the frontier, should get a taste of that wild time from this novel.

The Assassination of Governor Boggs is available at LDS bookstores, and online at Deseret Book, as both a print book and in a Kindle edition at Amazon.com, and at Barnes and Noble.com. (The print book is on sale now at Amazon and BN.)