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In "Improbable Fortunes," Jeffrey Price takes us on a wild ride into Vanadium, a dusty, down-on-its-heels mining town in southwest Coloradowhere it would be fair to assume that nothing has ever happened. But you d be wrong. As it turns out, quite a lot has happened, starting with a suspicious mudslide that destroys the town s Main Street and a cowboy, Buster McCaffrey, arrested for the death of one of the richest men in America, Marvin Mallomar. As the soon-to-retire Sheriff, Shep Dudival, investigates the circumstances surrounding the murder, it comes to light that Buster and Mallomar s young wife were having a Cowboy Always Rings Twice affair. From there, Price takes this familiar story plot and turns it on its headfolding a rococo cast of Vanadium s characters into a timeline that begins with Vanadium s post-WWII labor strife and ends with the Kulturkampf of present day. While it may all seem humorous and surreal at first blush, one gets the feeling by "Improbable Fortunes " unguessable conclusion that Price has used the fictitious town of Vanadiuma place without a recognizable gas station, a decent restaurant, or a clean bathroomas the Rosetta Stone for something larger."