The U. P. Trail

"The U. P. Trail," by Zane Grey, is a classic western set in and around the building of the Union Pacific Railroad in Wyoming. The main characters are Allie, a young woman who is the sole survivor of an Indian attack on a wagon train, and Neale, an ambitious young engineer with the U. P. who falls in love with Allie. The novel follows Neale from one crisis to the next - Allie's kidnapping by her abusive father, mismanagement and corruption on the railroad, engineering challenges, and Indian raids. As the book is primarily set in and around towns and the railroad, it doesn't have as much of the beautifully detailed descriptions of nature that make some of Grey's other novels (e.g. "Riders of the Purple Sage" and "The Rainbow Trail") stand out. Nonetheless, "The U. P. Trail" is a solidly entertaining western that will be of particular interest to readers who enjoyed watching AMC's "Hell on Wheels." (Geoffrey Benn)