The Fall of Rome

"The Fall of Rome" is a hilarious conclusion to the trilogy Ciotta slung into our consciousness with "Romancing the West" in 2006, then followed up with "Lasso the Moon" in 2007. Reading Ciotta's fast-moving books with fast-draw, fast romancing characters on all sides of the law has been rather like getting caught in a stampede. Too bad it's over. But if it has to be over, the shenanigans that begin in Gila Gulch, Arizona Territory (1878) wonderfully tie together a passel of characters and plot lines that go way back to the first book. The good, the bad and the ugly get what they're dreaming about and/or what they deserve. The sprawling Garrett family and its friends within the covert Peace Maker Alliance bring to Arizona the best qualities of characters played by Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and Glenn Ford along with a dash of the funniest people from "Saturday Night Live." Needless to say, when a nasty guy like Bulls-eye Brady and a dime-novel hero like Rome Garrett both set their attentions on the same woman, one Kat Simmons of card-shark fame, there will be plenty of fireworks and a paddock full of surprises. Non-stop action with a lot of laughs per page.

Rome Garrett was renowned for bringing hardened criminals to justice; his fame made him a legend in dime-store novels. However, the Wells Fargo detective fell from grace over six years ago when he killed a man while overextending the law and was with his pants down and gun un-holstered with a married woman. His beloved Kat Simmons left him and simply vanished. Rome falls apart, but now in 1878 he has started to regain his equilibrium with a position as a detective for the President Hayes sponsored Peacemaker Alliance (PMA). His assignment is to bring down train robber Bulls-eye Brady and to insure Kat's niece Frankie is safe from him. Kat resurfaces to bait Bulls-eye Brady but will need a totally responsible Rome, not the drunken womanizer she remembers, to help her. The return of PMA agents and their spouses (see ROMANCING THE WEST) enhances an enjoyable second chance at love western romance. The lead couple is a delightful pairing as she left him when he fell from grace; in her mind due to his cheating; others because he crossed the ethical line when he killed a man; in his mind he let down people especially his beloved. With a chance for redemption and love, the rise of Rome seems precarious as he knows defeating Brady and rescuing Frankie is not enough; winning back Kat is everything, but failure means the freefall of Rome. Beth Ciotta provides another excellent Reconstruction Era tale (see LASSO THE MOON). Harriet Klausner