Two-time Spur Award winning author C.K. Crigger delivers a compelling, action-packed romance with her new title, The Yeggman’s Apprentice.

First, a definition: A “yeggman” is a burglar, specifically a person who breaks into safes.  In Crigger’s book, set in the early 20th Century, the yeggman’s apprentice is a young woman.  Wilkie (Wilhelmina) Van Slyke is the niece of a highly skilled safe cracker who has been training her to be as proficient in the field as he has been.  The story opens with Wilkie at work, breaking into a safe containing records that prove someone has been embezzling funds from clients of the San Diego Spooner Bank and Trust.

Cracking open the safe turns out to be easier than collecting what’s owed to her and her uncle for the job and for delivering the stolen merchandise.  When Wilkie realizes there’s going to be trouble, she runs to the home of one of the individuals whose money is being misappropriated.  That’s where she meets a wanted man who turns out to be her only hope for survival.  Add an assassin hired to track the pair down and you have the perfect recipe for romantic intrigue.

The Yeggman’s Apprentice is a delight through to the last page.

Reviewed by Chris Enss, COWGIRL Book Editor, and a New York Times best-selling author who writes about women of the Old West.