The Russian River

Rivers West #5

by Gary McCarthy

While on a trapping expedition on the California coast, Russian naval officer Anton Rostov is stripped of his rank and cast off in the wilderness after he marries a Native American woman

Genres: Historical Fiction, Westerns

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Gary McCarthy is the author of fourteen American historical novels and thirty-four westerns published by many of New York's major publishing houses. He has over three million books in print and continues to research and write his Canyon Country novels.

Growing up with horses and living in California, Nevada and Arizona, Gary is well suited to writing about the American West. He received his B.S. degree in Animal Science and an M.S. in Agricultural Economics. He has a keen interest in Native American cultures, especially the Hopi, Navajo, Havasupai and Haulapai who live in Northern Arizona.

Gary and his wife Jane live in Arizona and have often ridden horses and hiked in the Kaibab and Coconino National Forests. Gary is always looking for new stories set in the American West and considers the research to be among his most favorite pursuits.

Reviews

[Paul F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would say this is an okay read, but not a great one. It is part of the "Rivers of the West" series, but it is not a true Western. It is more on the order of historical fiction, given that the action takes place "west of the West" along or near the Pacific coast, if "The West" as usually thought of by readers of Western fiction begins at the Mississippi River and ends at the Sierra Nevada and Cascades. I enjoyed the novel simply because I once lived near the Russian River in Northern California. However, casual readers may feel the novel simply tried to cover too much ground, over too long a time period. The story by Gary McCarthy follows the life and exploits of one Anton Rostov, a Russian of noble military birth, who is employed by the Russian-American Company. Rostov. his commandant Kuskov, and other Russians with more difficult-to-pronounce names head south from Sitka, Alaska to establish a Russian fur trading outpost near Bodega Bay, California. (I have visited the site.) Problems arise when the Russians, specifically an overbearing official named Sokolov, try too hard to get the Aleut otter seal hunters, and later the Pomo Indians, to realize that they have to hunt the seals to extinction, and build Fort Ross for the Russians because, well, the Russians are telling them to. Lieutenant Rostov finds this overbearing attitude discomfiting, especially due to his falling in love with a Pomo girl, Mitana, whom he eventually marries, costing Rostov his rank. Problem later is, Rostov must deal with the Spanish in and around San Francisco, specifically, a local Spanish rancher with a beautiful daughter. (Like I said, this novel tries to cover too much ground.) The results are predictable. Not content to be a homebody, Rostov develops an interest in beaver pelts, which he trades to the Spanish and later the Mexicans and later the Americans (like I said...) Rostov and his wife later become partners with John Augustus Sutter in Sacramento, who has an Indian servant girt whom he is abusing, and so on and so on. I got the impression in reading this novel that not only was it too long, trying to do too much, but that Rostov's many adventures never really put him in any real danger, and thus the novel, long and cumbersome, lacked any gripping verve.

[jann scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written and entertaining, as was the rest of the series. I do need to correct one part of the story and that is at location 1072, when he speaks of the panorama, where the story says "west" and "westward" he is really looking east.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent read! The story of the Russian fort Ross in northern California. Told by the nain character. Read it on audible a wonderful narration.

[Maryjane Nordgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

almost a fascinating read, but missed some obvious helps to the reader such as maps

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read -- a historical fiction account of the Russians' failed attempt at a foothold in America in the first half of the 1800s.

[Ronald · Rating 3 out of 5]

read some time in 1992