News of the World

Nearly ancient by the standards of the time but still in good voice as an itinerant reader of the news through small-town, post-Civil War Texas, Capt. Jefferson Kidd finds himself a temporary guardian of a puzzle and a problem: a 10-year-old orphan girl recently (and unwillingly) ransomed from the Kiowa, who had kidnapped her years before and raised her as one of their own. The story of their journey across the state, with its strong echoes of the wonderful True Grit, has its share of perils but is enlivened by two things: the stubborn efforts of the Captain (and, eventually, his charge) to do a good deed and Jiles's infectious love of the particular language of the time and place. Their compact, meandering tale leads to an ending as moving as any I've come to in this year of reading.