El Paso

Forrest Gump author Groom has written a brawny, sprawling novel, part legend and part history, about outlaws, revolutionaries, railroad tycoons, kidnappings, and daring rescues. While Europe plunges into the Great War, the Mexican Revolution intrudes on the still wild American Southwest. Railroad tycoon John Shaughnessy, known as the Colonel, learns that Pancho Villa has stolen cattle from his northern Mexico ranch, so he launches a partylike excursion to Mexico in his private rail car, with his family and chauffeur tagging along. Son Arthur flies his German-made, candy-apple-red Luft-Verkehrs across the country, hoping to beat everyone to El Paso, the gateway into Mexico. The Shaughnessy troop arrives at the hacienda only to encounter chaos, and Shaughnessy's grandchildren are kidnapped. When the Colonel's fiery telegrams to President Wilson are met with indifference, he forms Shaughnessy's Partisan Raiders to rescue the children. Woven into the rescue mission are colorful stories of soon-to-be movie cowboy Tom Mix as Villa's aide, Marxist journalist John Reed, writer Ambrose Bierce, and, in a masterly battle scene, Lt. George Patton and Gen. John Pershing.