Girl Flees Circus

In this latest from Smith (A Throttled Peacock), which launches University of New Mexico Press’s “Lynn and Lynda Miller Southwest Fiction Series,” 19-year-old Katie Burke drops out of the sky into the dusty settlement of Noname, NM, after wrestling her plane through a rough landing with the gas tank nearly empty. It was just the previous year that the town heard news of Charles Lindbergh’s solitary Atlantic air crossing; now the residents of Noname gather around Katie, aghast at the arrival of an aircraft. Young Leonard begins making repairs to the plane and is impressed that Katie knows engines, cartography, and math, since he’s something of an electricity whiz himself; Noname resident Otis has a forge, knows welding, and can fix anything; and pretentious Arabella, daughter of a rich rancher, organizes a luncheon for Katie so the elites of Noname can meet the famous aviatrix and trick flyer. But a reporter finds inconsistencies in the talk Katie delivers at the luncheon, and soon the word is out—she stole the plane, painted over the corporate name, and is not, in fact, headed for a Santa Monica air race. Before Sheriff Browne can capture the fugitive Katie, an accident at the nearby oil rig changes everyone’s lives.