From Library Journal
Forget Davy Crockett and the other "heroes" of the Alamo. Blake's (The Friends of Pancho Villa, Berkley, 1996) third novel offers a much bloodier and more terrible picture of the West than legends would have us believe. In 1845, Edward Little and his brother, John, flee their Florida home, leaving behind a missing sister and a mother driven insane by her drunken, abusive husband. Heading for the Mexican border towns, the brothers get separated in New Orleans. They each make their way to Texas, joining up with like-minded fellows out for adventure and Indian-killing. Edward and John end up on opposite sides when the United States declares war on Mexico; not even brotherly love can bridge the gap created by the Rio Grande in the 1840s. Episode after episode of unrelieved murder and mayhem as experienced by mostly inarticulate men make up this fast-moving, unromanticized Western. Recommended for public libraries.?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, SeattleCopyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Blake (The Pistoleer, 1995, etc.) again demonstrates his talent for mingling historical fact with fiction, in the case here of the Mexican War and the antebellum frontier. Brothers John and Edward Little return to their remote north Florida farm from a search for their runaway sister only to find their father on a murderous rampage. The boys defend themselves and kill their father. Their mother, meanwhile, has fled. Left alone, the teenagers set out for Texas, but they become separated in New Orleans. John, who can't control his violent nature, kills a man and, to escape hanging, joins Zachary Taylor's Mexican Warbound army. Edward, in the meantime, also commits murder but flees to Texas and after several bloody adventures ends up in Mexico. He first joins a company of scalp-hunters, then takes up with a band of Mexican bandits who are ultimately impressed into US Service as the infamous Spy Company. For his part, John deserts the army and joins the St. Patrick's Brigade, composed of Americans (mostly Irishmen) fighting on the Mexican side. Shifting between the brothers' parallel stories, Blake offers a virtual encyclopedia of graphic violence. People are shot, clubbed, knifed, eviscerated, castrated, decapitated, impaled, flayed alive, hanged, scalped, dismembered, blown up, and immolated. And sexual perversions run the gamut from rape to sodomy to incest and necrophilia; only bestiality is omitted. Brutality and grotesque images are played out against invariably blood-red sunsets and dawns. Blake's assured prose, knowledge of history, and fast-paced story are definite pluses, but in its last third the complexities of the war and the redundancy of mind-numbing violence overwhelm the characters, finally rendering them rather absurd. (First printing of 25,000) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
The offspring of a whore mother and a homicidal father, Edward and John Little are driven from their home in the Florida swamplands by a sching parent's treacheries, and by a shameful, horrific act that will haunt their dreams for the rest of their days. Joining the swelling ranks of the rootless--wandering across an almost surreal bloodland populated by the sorrowfully lost and defiantly damned--two brothers are separated by death and circumstance in the lawless "Dixie City" of New Orelans, and dispatched by destiny to opposing sides in a fierce and desperate territorial struggled between Mexico and the United States. And a family bond tempered in hot blood is tested in the cruel, all-consuming fires of war and conscience.With soaring and masterful prose, James Carlos Blake brings to life an enthralling historical time and place--and a cast of memorable characters--in a stunning tale of dark instinct, blood reckoning, and fates forged in the zeal of America's "Manifest Destiny."

About the Author
James Carlos Blake was born in Mexico and raised in Texas. The most recent of his four novels is Red Grass River. His previous novels,In the Rogue Blood, received the LA Times Book Prize for Fiction. His short fiction has won awards and has appeared in a variety of literary journals. He lives in El Paso, Texas, and DeLand, Florida.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In the Rogue Blood is the story of two brothers, Edward and John Little -- the offspring of a whore mother and a cruel and homicidal father, a man never to he admired or trusted. At an age when restlessness determines a young man's path, the boys are driven from their home in the Florida swamplands by a scheming parent's treacheries and by a shameful, bloody act that will haunt their dreams for the rest of their days: patricide, the most heinous sin of all. Joining the swelling ranks of the rootless, they wander west across a southern landscape that reflects their world's brute nature. Separated by death and circumstance in the corrupt and sordid 'Dixie City' of New Orleans, the brothers Little must now follow different roads: one joins the army to escape the law, the other falls in with scalphunters bound for the Mexican badlands. What follows is a year of bizarre and violent episodes in their lives -- and nights relentlessly haunted by the taunting ghostly memory of their murdered father. But blood will always find blood, even as fate places Edward and John on opposing sides in a fierce and desperate territorial struggle between Mexico and the United States. And it is here that a family bond will be tempered - and tested - in fire, as each brother in his own way must come to an individual reckoning with his own rogue blood.

FROM THE CRITICS

Dallas Morning News

Powerful...impressive...[an] epic of the 1840s frontier.

Rocky Mountain News

Powerful...lyrical...This is the literary and geographic territory of Cormac McCarthy, but James Carlos Blake stakes his own claim...Aficionados of the serious historical Western will rejoice at its arrival.

Library Journal

Forget Davy Crockett and the other 'heroes' of the Alamo. Blake's (The Friends of Pancho Villa) third novel offers a much bloodier and more terrible picture of the West than legends would have us believe. In 1845, Edward Little and his brother, John, flee their Florida home, leaving behind a missing sister and a mother driven insane by her drunken, abusive husband. Heading for the Mexican border towns, the brothers get separated in New Orleans. They each make their way to Texas, joining up with like-minded fellows out for adventure and Indian-killing. Edward and John end up on opposite sides when the United States declares war on Mexico; not even brotherly love can bridge the gap created by the Rio Grande in the 1840s. Episode after episode of unrelieved murder and mayhem as experienced by mostly inarticulate men make up this fast-moving, unromanticized Western. -- Nancy Pearl, Washington Center for the Book, Seattle

Library Journal

Forget Davy Crockett and the other 'heroes' of the Alamo. Blake's (The Friends of Pancho Villa) third novel offers a much bloodier and more terrible picture of the West than legends would have us believe. In 1845, Edward Little and his brother, John, flee their Florida home, leaving behind a missing sister and a mother driven insane by her drunken, abusive husband. Heading for the Mexican border towns, the brothers get separated in New Orleans. They each make their way to Texas, joining up with like-minded fellows out for adventure and Indian-killing. Edward and John end up on opposite sides when the United States declares war on Mexico; not even brotherly love can bridge the gap created by the Rio Grande in the 1840s. Episode after episode of unrelieved murder and mayhem as experienced by mostly inarticulate men make up this fast-moving, unromanticized Western. -- Nancy Pearl, Washington Center for the Book, Seattle

Kirkus Reviews

Blake (The Pistoleer) again demonstrates his talent for mingling historical fact with fiction, in the case here of the Mexican War and the antebellum frontier. Brothers John and Edward Little return to their remote north Florida farm from a search for their runaway sister only to find their father on a murderous rampage. The boys defend themselves and kill their father. Their mother, meanwhile, has fled. Left alone, the teenagers set out for Texas, but they become separated in New Orleans. John, who can't control his violent nature, kills a man and, to escape hanging, joins Zachary Taylor's Mexican Warbound army. Edward, in the meantime, also commits murder but flees to Texas and after several bloody adventures ends up in Mexico. He first joins a company of scalp-hunters, then takes up with a band of Mexican bandits who are ultimately impressed into U.S. Service as the infamous Spy Company. For his part, John deserts the army and joins the St. Patrick's Brigade, composed of Americans (mostly Irishmen) fighting on the Mexican side. Shifting between the brothers' parallel stories, Blake offers a virtual encyclopedia of graphic violence. People are shot, clubbed, knifed, eviscerated, castrated, decapitated, impaled, flayed alive, hanged, scalped, dismembered, blown up, and immolated. And sexual perversions run the gamut from rape to sodomy to incest and necrophilia; only bestiality is omitted. Brutality and grotesque images are played out against invariably blood-red sunsets and dawns. Blake's assured prose, knowledge of history, and fast-paced story are definite pluses, but in its last third the complexities of the war and the redundancy of mind-numbing violence overwhelm thecharacters, finally rendering them rather absurd.