Trooper Donovan

by Frank Roderus

John Donovan, a young recruit in the Seventh Cavalry, learns harsh lessons about life and death while hoping to serve out his enlistment in peace, as he gets much more than he expected. Original.

Genres: Westerns

246 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 2000

About the author

Frank Roderus wrote his first story—it was a western—when he was five. It was really awful, as might be expected, but his mother kept that typed and spell-checked short story tucked away until the day she died.
Later, Frank became a newspaper reporter, thinking that books are written by authors which he most assuredly was not. He kept trying to write though, and eventually did it wrong enough to learn how to get it right. That first sale, a young adult novel published by Independence Press, was more than thirty years and a good many books ago.
As a journalist, the Colorado Press Association awarded Frank Roderus their highest award, the Sweepstakes Award, for the best news story of 1980, and the Western Writers of America has twice named Frank recipient of their prestigious Spur Award. Frank passed away at age 73 in December 2015.

Reviews

[Megargee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life in the 7th Cavalry during the Plains Indian Wars of the late 1860s as seen through the eyes of a new recruit. Dusty patrols, saddle sores, latrine duty, and an unending diet of bacon, beans, and hardtack with occasional skirmishes. No high drama, just a realistic depiction of a trooper's life and struggles. Toward the end, Trooper Donovan is reminiscent of Pct. Maggio in From Here to Eternity as an alienated officer tries to run him off.