Fourmile (review)

Twelve-year-old Foster misses his dad, who had been teaching him about running the family farm before he was killed in an accident. His mother's new boyfriend, Dax, is loud-mouthed and creepy; even Foster's dog, Joe, doesn't like him, and the feeling is mutual. Joe does take to a stranger who appears on the farm, a former soldier named Gary who is backpacking his way to Texas. When Gary rightly assesses the situation—a farm in need of various repairs and general upkeep, a boy in need of attention, and a widow who may have made a very bad choice in a boyfriend—he asks if he can stay on and help get the farm in shape to sell. Foster's mother agrees, but Dax doesn't like the idea, and soon his true nature as an abusive alcoholic becomes dangerously evident. Gary takes it as his duty to protect Foster and his mom as Dax's aggression mounts, but staying to help them gives his own past a chance to catch up with him. Foster's fondness and admiration for Gary reveal the depths of his loneliness and grief, making his character development a central feature of this suspenseful drama; Gary is the strong, honorable man he's been missing, even if that honor turns out to be stained. Key pulls the right emotional strings for young boy readers, as the love between a boy and his dog and the grief over losing a father are mixed in with chilling hypermasculine violence that puts his mother in danger and allows him to participate in her protection. Written in the tradition of classics such as Old Yeller and Shiloh but with a decidedly contemporary setting and tone, this will appeal to a broad range of readers.