One for Another, Andrea Jacka

A mystery set in 1880's Idaho with a bordello madam Hennessy Reed at the centre of it, that has a lot going for it. I know....

Hennessey Reed is a bordello madam with a liking for laudanum, irish whiskey and the local marshal. Although they keep that last one on the quiet as much as possible. Reed is more than a bit annoyed when her 3 young girls are murdered near her town, Melancholy, where she's part come to hide out and start again. When her own daughter goes missing, she's into the hunt, whether US Marshal Rafael Cooper likes it or not, and she's convinced that a threat from the past - the awful Jedidiah Cannon - is behind these killings.

Armed with a Bowie knife strapped to her calf, with faithful wolfhound Raven at her side, as the blurb puts it she becomes a one-woman stampede. And you can really believe that's exactly what Hennessey Reed would become when anybody is wronged on her watch. Needless to say Reed is the stand out of this novel. Strong, determined, bolshie and independent, this madam-come-avenger is a tremendous character with considerable ongoing series potential. Sure there's a tendency for this novel to get overly wordy at points, and the overtness of the threat and the white hat / bad hat obviousness needs dialling back a bit, along with some tweakage to the flow of dialogue and plot to help achieve a more overall pace consistency, but they are mostly minor irritations that could be easily resolved, and might not even be an issue if you're more of a fan of historical styled novels than fast paced crime fiction.

At the heart of ONE FOR ANOTHER, the standouts, however, are the great character of Reed, the strong supporting cast around her, and the interesting scenario into which those characters are placed. Tighten the delivery up and you can't help but feel there's something very good coming our way.