Fleischman, who can spin a yarn like nobody's business, is in top form here, delivering a thumping good page-turner spiced with humor, snappy descriptions (""The front door stood wide open, as if the building were gasping for air"" Mzzz Mad says Paw Paw feels ""older'n greasewood"") and a lickety-split plot. A couple on a crime spree throw a monkey wrench into Bo's plans to move on, however, and he soon finds himself handcuffed to Mzzz Mad and in fairly desperate straits. Only Aunt Juna, an artist who inveigles Bo into a scheme to rekindle Paw Paw's interest in life with a fake treasure map, shows him any kindness. Bo and his smart-mouthed cousin Madeleine Martinka (she goes by Mzzz Mad) take an instant dislike to each other, and grumpy Paw Paw, Mad's ex-cowboy movie star grandpa, is equally unwelcoming. ""the jumping-off place to nowhere"" is less than auspicious. In his contemporary western, 12-year-old Bo Gamage's arrival in Queen of Sheba, Calif. Take one orphaned boy, send him to relatives with whom his family has been feuding for generations, add a long-lost gold mine and a pair of no-good, low-down dirty rascals and voil the stage is set for a classic Fleischman (Bandit's Moon) tale.
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