THE CAREY BLOOD

 

THE CAREY BLOOD
By Irving A. Greenfield
Tandem, 1973
Originally published by Dell, 1972

Texas, the 1860s

William Carey has carved out a cattle empire with a Bowie knife and a fast gun … and he’ll go to any lengths to defend it. He fears only one thing in life: the reckless violence that rages in his blood. A violence that his youngest son – the hard-drinking, womanising Thomas Carey — has inherited...

A love-hate relationship simmers between the two men, and when William orders his son to marry Helen Wicker, a woman he doesn’t love, Thomas’s hatred begins to take over. Forced to choose between his heritage and his obsessive love for Lisa Mendoza, a local saloon girl, Thomas is trapped. In his fury and frustration, he sets in motion a terrible chain of events that will cast a shadow over his life – and Helen’s – for ever.

Unable to face the consequences of his actions, Thomas throws himself into the coming civil war as a lieutenant in the newly formed Confederate Army. But will fighting for a cause he doesn’t believe in bring Thomas the peace he seeks? Or is his life destined to end before he’s figured out how to live it?

And who will pay the ultimate price for the fury that rages in the Carey blood?

This is the first book in a trilogy, and all three have been sitting on my shelves unread for many years. Wanting to try an author that I hadn’t read before, I decided to give Irving A. Greenfield a try. 

The book certainly reflects the times it was written in. Clean-cut heroes were no-longer the stars in novels and films. The lead characters had their flaws, and here it is the barely contained rage that flows through the Carey blood. Neither Thomas or William is particularly likeable but do they need to be? Nope, not to me. It’s their rough-edges that make them interesting, made me want to keep reading to discover how their love-hate relationship would turn out.

Supporting characters are as equally well thought-out by Greenfield, and it wasn’t long before I was feeling sorry for Helen. Her self-belief that she could change Thomas, get him to love her, seemed doomed from the very start. What would her destiny be? I certainly didn’t predict what did happen to her. 

At times Thomas seems a little contradictory in his actions. When a ranch-hand is killed, Thomas seeks vengeance and succeeds in his desire, yet, when evil befalls his wife, he lets it go. 

Greenfield certainly captured my imagination with his story and characters. His words creating a great sense of time and place, of mental struggles. The arguments about God and who is in the right regarding the coming Civil War and slave ownership added some terrific tension to the tale. 

When Thomas goes to war, a whole new horrific plot-line weaves its way into the conflict between blue and grey, father and son, one that has me wanting to read book two as soon as possible. 

American readers can get a copy here
British readers can get a copy here