Review: Ah, Fantasy thy name is Dude!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 8, 2013
This is really a 3.5-star book but half stars don't work. Ben is our typical aging cowboy (with a strong military past, of course), mourning his dead wife for 3 years with a bottle and now about to lose his ranch ... which he cares about despite being soused more often than sober.Amanda is 26, had been working the streets of Chicago until drug dealer Tyrone, who was running her, decides he'd prefer to keep her.So far, so good.Amanda (who has a child by Tyrone) has devised a brilliant scheme to run away from her abusive master, a Jamaican drug dealer who is dark skinned. Amanda decides that there are so few dark skinned people in Montana that she will see the guys coming after her (which they will!) in plenty of time to hide,so that's where she heads. Amanda is, of course, wrong. But Ben happens to be in the vicinity. Hey, a 56-year-old army trained guy who has spent the last three years drunk still has the wherewithal to take down four street-fighting-trained drug dealers and get Amanda to safety. Yeah, right. Ben now has to fight the whole Chicago Jamaican mob, with Amanda falling in love with him en passant. Uh huh. 26-56.The tale itself is fun. Ben has brilliant ideas and carries them through perfectly. I thoroughly enjoyed the rough and tumble and the efforts to outsmart the enemy. I liked Ben and I liked Amanda. But somehow, it felt the story was the pipe dream of a guy who wishes he were Ben. Too bad.