Review: Girl Waits With Gun b Amy Stewart
Girl Waits With Gun
by Amy Stewart
When local factory owner Henry Kaufman hits the Kopp sisters’ buggy with his car, middle sister Constance sends him a bill for the damages. When her note goes unanswered, Constance visits Kaufman’s factory, and he doesn’t take kindly to her appearance. Soon the Kopp’s home is being deluged with threatening letters, rocks thrown through windows, and the disturbing sounds of strange men driving by late at night. Oldest sister Norma is furious and wishes Constance would drop the complaint so that Kaufman will leave them alone; youngest sister Fleurette is excited by the drama after being raised by her paranoid mother and spinster siblings. Their brother, who lives in town with his wife, worries that his sisters can’t manage the farm on their own and wants them to live with him, but the three women are determined to hold onto their independence. When the police seem disinclined or unable to end their harassment, Constance decides to take the investigation into her own hands and find a way to prevent Kaufman from disrupting others’ lives as he has done to her family.
Girl Waits with Gun is based on a real family, whose true story Amy Stewart stumbled across while researching a previous book. The real Constance Kopp became one of the country’s first female deputies. Records of her life are scanty at best, but Stewart tried to stay as accurate to the historical record as she could. When nothing was said, she stepped in as storyteller to fill in the gaps. In doing so, Stewart creates three unforgettable, strong women united by blood and by a family secret that drove them to their reclusive lives for fifteen years.
Each sister has a distinctive personality that complements the other two. Norma inherited their mother’s paranoid tendencies, and likes to live a life that is predictable and orderly. Baby sister Fleurette, a vivacious and pretty teenager, loves to sing and dance and dress in the latest fashion. Fleurette shines with youth and a cleverness that surprises those who dismiss her as a silly kid. Constance is practical and has trouble overlooking injustice. Her headstrong determination to collect Kaufman’s debt - largely because the sisters can’t afford to repair the buggy otherwise - triggers a series of events that forces the sisters out of their seclusion and back into the world. Together, the sisters are just so much fun, and their interactions are always the best scenes in the book.
If only Constance’s crime-fighting career was as compelling as her domestic life. Her promotion to deputy doesn’t happen until the final page of the book, and her amateur attempts at sleuthing move glacially. There’s very little excitement to be had, even when Kaufman comes roaring by with his gangs shooting guns from their car doors. The middle section of the book moved at an especially slow pace. There was a lot of great stuff buried in the repetitious passages of attacks on Kopp property and Constance trying to convince the police to act against Kaufman. The secret that haunts the Kopp sisters is unveiled through flashbacks and small clues, and when it all ties together the payoff is fantastic. But other plot threads don’t add to the overall story; Constance spends a lot of time hunting down a kidnapped child for a former factory worker, but the only impact the quest has on the main plot is to reveal that Kaufman is a bad man - a fact already abundantly clear.
There’s a lot to like here - I’d read another Kopp sisters novel - but the pacing problem does keep me from loving Girl Waits With Gun unreservedly.
3 out of 5 stars
To read more about Girl Waits With Gun, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2014: Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall #2) by Hilary Mantel
2013: Bunny Drop Vol. 1 by Yumi Unita
2012: Random: Rambling about Audiobooks
2011: News: Taylor Swift Donates 6000 Books to Library
2010: Intertwinted by Gena Showalter
2009: 10 Comic Book Series You Need to Read, Part II
2008: Nation by Terry Pratchett
by Amy Stewart
When local factory owner Henry Kaufman hits the Kopp sisters’ buggy with his car, middle sister Constance sends him a bill for the damages. When her note goes unanswered, Constance visits Kaufman’s factory, and he doesn’t take kindly to her appearance. Soon the Kopp’s home is being deluged with threatening letters, rocks thrown through windows, and the disturbing sounds of strange men driving by late at night. Oldest sister Norma is furious and wishes Constance would drop the complaint so that Kaufman will leave them alone; youngest sister Fleurette is excited by the drama after being raised by her paranoid mother and spinster siblings. Their brother, who lives in town with his wife, worries that his sisters can’t manage the farm on their own and wants them to live with him, but the three women are determined to hold onto their independence. When the police seem disinclined or unable to end their harassment, Constance decides to take the investigation into her own hands and find a way to prevent Kaufman from disrupting others’ lives as he has done to her family.
Girl Waits with Gun is based on a real family, whose true story Amy Stewart stumbled across while researching a previous book. The real Constance Kopp became one of the country’s first female deputies. Records of her life are scanty at best, but Stewart tried to stay as accurate to the historical record as she could. When nothing was said, she stepped in as storyteller to fill in the gaps. In doing so, Stewart creates three unforgettable, strong women united by blood and by a family secret that drove them to their reclusive lives for fifteen years.
Each sister has a distinctive personality that complements the other two. Norma inherited their mother’s paranoid tendencies, and likes to live a life that is predictable and orderly. Baby sister Fleurette, a vivacious and pretty teenager, loves to sing and dance and dress in the latest fashion. Fleurette shines with youth and a cleverness that surprises those who dismiss her as a silly kid. Constance is practical and has trouble overlooking injustice. Her headstrong determination to collect Kaufman’s debt - largely because the sisters can’t afford to repair the buggy otherwise - triggers a series of events that forces the sisters out of their seclusion and back into the world. Together, the sisters are just so much fun, and their interactions are always the best scenes in the book.
If only Constance’s crime-fighting career was as compelling as her domestic life. Her promotion to deputy doesn’t happen until the final page of the book, and her amateur attempts at sleuthing move glacially. There’s very little excitement to be had, even when Kaufman comes roaring by with his gangs shooting guns from their car doors. The middle section of the book moved at an especially slow pace. There was a lot of great stuff buried in the repetitious passages of attacks on Kopp property and Constance trying to convince the police to act against Kaufman. The secret that haunts the Kopp sisters is unveiled through flashbacks and small clues, and when it all ties together the payoff is fantastic. But other plot threads don’t add to the overall story; Constance spends a lot of time hunting down a kidnapped child for a former factory worker, but the only impact the quest has on the main plot is to reveal that Kaufman is a bad man - a fact already abundantly clear.
There’s a lot to like here - I’d read another Kopp sisters novel - but the pacing problem does keep me from loving Girl Waits With Gun unreservedly.
3 out of 5 stars
To read more about Girl Waits With Gun, buy it or add it to your wishlist click here.
Peeking into the archives...today in:
2014: Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall #2) by Hilary Mantel
2013: Bunny Drop Vol. 1 by Yumi Unita
2012: Random: Rambling about Audiobooks
2011: News: Taylor Swift Donates 6000 Books to Library
2010: Intertwinted by Gena Showalter
2009: 10 Comic Book Series You Need to Read, Part II
2008: Nation by Terry Pratchett