Author: Peter Rennebohm

ISBN: 0878392270

An alcoholic parent can make children react in a variety of ways and can even lead to their running away from home. Such is the case with eleven year old Charlie Nash, who takes off one day in 1955 with his dog Taffy, after his father Frank was imprisoned for driving while intoxicated.

Charlie was a witness to Frank’s drunk behavior, as he had been a passenger in his father’s car, while both were on their way to a week-end of hunting.

Blue Springs, Peter Rennebohm’s third book, is well-plotted, intertwining and exploring a network of thoughtful asides with poignant sensitivity, as family relationships, alcoholism, forgiveness, life’s tragedies and child abuse. What is noteworthy about the author’s writing is the subtlety with which he embeds these complex ideas into the novel.

It is also a mystery involving a cast of some offbeat shady characters, who hire an assassin to track down Charlie, after they discover that he is in possession of two very valuable pennies worth thousands of dollars.

Charlie is a likeable and emotionally mature kid, who is in a tough spot and is unaware of the evil characters that are hunting him down. Not only are his valuable coins attracting some very malicious and unsavory characters, he is also oblivious that another mean spirited individual, Virgil Pisant, unrelated to the first group, is likewise after him.

Apparently, Pisant has some old scores to settle with Charlie’s father, and he plans to kidnap Charlie as retribution.

The story follows Charlie and Taffy from their hopping on a freight train in Minneapolis to meeting up with Quill Purdue, who is returning home to Blue Springs, South Dakota, after his departure 10 years ago, following a most unfortunate personal incident. To complicate matters, Quill is suffering from a life threatening medical problem-abdominal aortic aneurism.

The most absorbing parts of this book concern the intimate moments shared between Charlie and Quill, wherein the compassionate character of Quill illuminates the dark world that Charlie had been subjected to. On the other hand, with a little help from Charlie’s innocent prodding, Quill comes to terms with the ghosts of a personal tragedy.

One of the shortcomings of the book is that sometimes it feels over-busy with its secondary characters and their superfluous babble, particularly the biblical quotations uttered by one of the “bad guys.” However, in spite of this, the story is engaging and will definitely hold your interest until the last page.