Devils Unto Dust

Reviewed by: Jennifer Lance - Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, South Paris, Central Maine Library District

Review Date: September 17, 2018

Review

When the Wild West is swept up in a plague that turns people and animals into undead things called shakes, it takes a very special kind of girl to survive such circumstances. Willie is that girl. Her mother dies from the disease, and Willie is left to raise her younger siblings as their father is a shiftless drunk who they rarely see. The kids are holed up in Glory, Texas, an isolated town fenced in to keep the shakes out, and fallen under the rule of ruthless shake hunters. Willie finds her family in peril when her father steals a huge sum of money from one of the hunters, and Willie must pay the debt. Luckily, she finds two young hunters willing to help her for cheap, and they venture out into the shake-filled desert to find her father, get the money, or die trying. It's not often you find a book peopled with both cowboys and zombies, but "Devils Unto Dust" does it very well. The scenario works well in a post Civil War Texas, and there is even reference to timely historical innovations, such as vaccinations and the transcontinental railroad. Best of all, Willie isn't just another spunky pioneer girl, but a young woman who tries to do the right thing even though she is lonely, afraid, and angry.

Overall Book Score: excellent