The Madstone by Elizabeth Crook

My Rating: 4.8

In 1868 Texas hill country, nineteen-year-old as Benjamin Shreve tends to business in his workshop, he witnesses a stagecoach strand a passenger. When the man, a treasure hunter, persuades Benjamin to help track down the vanished coach—and a mysterious fortune left aboard—Benjamin is drawn into a drama whose scope he could never have imagined, for they discover on reaching the coach that its passengers include Nell, a pregnant young woman, and her four-year-old son, Tot, who are fleeing Nell’s brutal husband and his murderous brothers. 

Having told the Freedmen’s Bureau the whereabouts of her husband’s gang—a sadistic group wanted for countless acts of harassment and violence against Black citizens—Nell is in grave danger. If her husband catches her, he will kill her and take their son. Learning of their plight, Benjamin offers to deliver Nell and Tot to a distant port on the Gulf of Mexico, where they can board a ship to safety. 

This is told in the first person perspective as a letter written by Benjamin - and the audio is lovely. This is a wild west story with characters, plot and wonderful writing. Crook did a lot of research to bring this historical event to life. This is compared to Lonesome Dove and News of The World and, although it did feel similar with it being of the wild west, I think it is a book that stands on it'sown. I will definitely be reading more by this author.