Montana Books

Nice book.REMINDS me of the under ground rail road.

The subtitle, "Story of the 1890s Fort Missoula Buffalo Soldiers Bicycle Corps" is a good general description of the book's contents. I had never heard of Ft. Missoula, much less known that they had a bicycle corps, before stumbling across this book in the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial's bookstore. It's not a long book, but it covers its topic well. Of course I was interested in the horrendous ride from Missoula, Montana to St. Louis, but the account of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry saving the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill was enlightening. Also (all too) informative was the account of the "discharge without honor" by order of President Theodore Roosevelt of 167 soldiers, many of them formerly of the bicycle corps. The book also includes numerous photos, a number of which are wonderful shots (and very well-printed) of the soldiers in Yellowstone National Park. I highly recommend this book as an entertaining account of a dedicated group of American soldiers who happened to have been of African descent. (Incidently, having read this book I was able to feel incredibly smug with recognition when the Bicycle Corps turned up as an integral part of Peter Heck's "Tom's Lawyer", the most recent installment of his Mark Twain mystery series.)

This is a very interesting and neglected subject for a book. I'm interested in anything about bicycling and a bit about the turn of the century, so this was a must-read. Because this is the only book of it's kind I've found, I would recommend reading it.

However, be aware of a few annoyances. The book is poorly edited and proof-read. There are many hyphens separating words that are not at the ends of lines, and a few paragraphs end mid-sentence. There are quite a few repeated passages and it tends to wander a bit from the main subject. One gets the feeling it would not have filled a book of more normal format and was padded a bit. It would be nice to see this one re-published and improved.

Again, I don't mean to disparage it too much - just pointing out some personal annoyances.

Hope it helps...

What a great book! It really has something for everybody; military bike history, Black history, the American frontier at the turn of the century and more. Great pictures and illustrations also. Military cycling books are rare and this one fills a much needed niche. You will not be disappointed.

In 1897 a contingent of twenty black soldiers, a white West Point officer, a military surgeon and a young newspaper reporter rode bicycles from Fort Missoula, Montana to St. Louis, Missouri, following the Burlington Northern railroad. The groups' leader, Lt. Moss, was trying to prove to the army that bicycles could be a valuable asset. I first became acquainted with this little known gem of history through the children's magazine Highlights in the early 90s. I have been fascinated with it ever since. George Niels Sorenson's Iron Riders presents this story and the broader context of those "Buffalo Soldiers-on-wheels". He tells us of the practice trip the bicycle corp made to Yellowstone Park before their epic St. Louis run and the lives of the riders after their trip. This 8 x 10 book has many primary source pictures, documents and maps which illuminate the text. It's the only informational book I know of devoted to a story which deserves a wider audience. If you are a middle school history teacher, like me, do yourself a favor and pick up this book. It would make a fantastic unit. But I agree with the other reviewer: anybody who likes black history, social history, military history, bicycle touring, the west and/or unsung heroes will find a lot to enjoy in this book. And, if you like this book you'll want to check out the PBS video The Bicycle Corps: America's Black Army on Wheels and the children's book Black Wheels.

Montana Skies will touch your heart and soul. It's a deeply moving story by Kat Stockham.

Rissa Mathews has come to North Star Montana to help her troubled teenaged daughter after the tragic death of her husband. Her daughter Skylar is no longer the sweet girl she once was, she is a whole new girl. Rissa is happy Skylar has made a friend in town but it's the Sheriff's daughter.

Sheriff Jonas Taggert's first meeting with Rissa strikes a chord with him. He is attracted to Rissa but is very leery of being burned again by a woman. Plus there is her gothic daughter that he feels is a less then ideal friend for his own daughter Caroline.

Jonas and Rissa start a temporary relationship but their hearts have other ideas. They both find a passion that is beyond compare but will their problems with their teens and their past tear them apart?

Montana Skies is a compelling story on so many levels. The romance of Rissa and Jonas is sexy as it is tender. The teens in this story will break your heart and bring you to tears. I would highly recommend that you try Kay Stockham's books they are keepers.

Her husband died in a car accident that also injured their fourteen years old daughter Skylar. So to help her raise her offspring, pilot Rissa Mathews moves to North Star, Montana where her family and best friends live. Whereas Skylar feels at home, Rissa loathes the move failing to adapt to the small town.

Skylar makes one friend Caroline Taggert, daughter of the sheriff. The town's prime law enforcement official Jonas is not happy with seeing his relatively obedient daughter hanging out with the newcomer, an obviously troubled teen. Making matters worse, he meets Skylar's mom when he stops her for speeding and to his chagrin he is attracted to her; she feels the same way about him including the belief this is the wrong time for them.

The romance takes a back seat to the troubled teen as Rissa steals the show with her behavior and attitude. The story line is character driven as the two single adults struggle with parenting that each knows must supersede their love for one another. Readers who appreciate a solid realistic family drama (climax aside) will want to journey to MONTANA SKIES as the responsible lead couple raises their offspring while falling in unwanted love.

Harriet Klausner

I've been anxious for this book to come out and it was worth the wait!
Unique characters, an emotionally charged plot. I couldn't put it down.
Ms. Stockham's writing just keeps getting better.

If you're looking for a book with great characters and an emotionally involving plot, pick up Montana Skies. The protagonists are realistic characters a reader can identify with, and the supporting cast play an important role and give the story a lot of depth. Romance fans will love the hero who's doing his best to raise a daughter alone, but hasn't a clue how to deal with party dresses or feminine underwear. The heroine is equally admirable facing adversity, but never giving up on her troubled kid. This one is a keeper!

Rissa Matthews moves to Montana with her daughter Skylar, a troubled teen who has been having behavioral problems since the death of her father. In the opening chapter, Rissa is caught speeding, trying to get to Skylar's school on time for a meeting with the school counselor. Sheriff Jonas Taggert is the law enforcement officer who pulls her to the side of the road, asking for her license, which of course she doesn't have with her. Rissa explains that she and Skylar are currently living with a cousin, Maura, at the "Second Chance", hoping that Maura's name will be good enough to keep her from getting a ticket. Jonas lets Rissa go with just a warning.

In the meantime, Rissa is looking for a job as a pilot, but while she is living with Maura, she helps out around the ranch. Rissa hopes that with the passing of time, Skylar will return to her normal self, and eventually Rissa will find that job she's been looking for, allowing them to move on from their temporary home. But Rissa can't find the daughter she used to know underneath the Goth makeup and dark clothing. Skylar is getting in a lot of trouble at school, which Rissa finds out soon enough from the school counselor, and with the law.

Jonas has a teenage daughter, Caroline, who is quiet and shy, and somehow she and Skylar become friends. Rissa is happy to see Skylar finally trying to fit in with her classmates, but Jonas doesn't want Skylar's influence on Caroline, whose mother left, leaving Caroline insecure and vulnerable. Jonas does, however, like Rissa a lot, but unfortunately he can't seem to get past Skylar's attitude and her outward appearance. He's in a difficult situation where a potential romance may never get a chance to bloom because of Skylar.

I enjoyed this superromance, mainly because of the two teens Skylar and Caroline. I felt they were the stars of the story, a friendship that ultimately helps to bring together Jonas and Rissa. Skylar especially was a standout character, very complex and interesting on many levels. Kay Stockham did a wonderful job portraying this girl who was trying to sort out the mess that was her life, and the guilt she carried regarding the death of her father. Rissa is torn between her growing attraction to Jonas, and her desire to protect and nurture her only daughter who desperately needed help. I felt that Jonas made an interesting male protagonist, with his inability to see past Skylar's looks and assuming the worst in her, just like the rest of the town did. The pairing of Caroline and Skylar, two girls who were as opposite as night and day, was brilliant.

MONTANA SKIES is a romance that I'll remember for its multi-faceted characters that were realistically drawn and interesting to read about. This book is recommended.

This is the funniest novel I've read since finishing Don Quixote sometime last month. I feel I ought to single out for particular notice Chapter 34, wherein a drunken Frank abducts Lucy and precipitates a riotous vehicular escapade. This episode constitutes about as polished a piece of comedy as I've ever encountered in any of the books I have read and, like I said, I've just finished Don Quixote. Ozell's revision of the translation of Peter Motteux as a matter of fact. Take my word for it, the unfairly maligned Motteux puts Tobias Smollett in the crapper. For what it's worth, Mister McGuane actually alludes to Cervantes' great masterwork twice during the course of his own inimitable relation: once a tad obliquely, when Frank briefly visits Alaska and is tossed in a blanket by a bunch of tanked-up Eskimos, recalling Sancho Panza's similar treatment outside the Inn at the hands of four Segovia Clothiers, three Cordova Point-makers, and two Seville Hucksters, all brisk, gamesome, arch fellows; and once rather more directly, when a Buick Frank had purchased from June is described as being as loose-jointed and ungainly as Rozinante. Well it's all a circle really, isn't it?

Thomas McGuane is a remarkably gifted writer and here he is at the top of his form. This book captures the beauty and the tragedy of the west, is full of characters who are real and pathetic and loveable and maddening. The territory of Western pathos and failed relationships covered briliantly by Richard Ford, but McGuane in this book brings a consistent over the top humor and sense of the ridiculous which distinguishes him sharply from Ford. Picaresque bar fights alternate with lyrical descriptions of the fishing streams of Montana, the protagonist's series of soulless affairs constrasts sharply with his desperate love for the wife who has left him. The book is fascinating, and beautiful, and terribly funny.

This was my first, but will not be my last, novel by Thomas McGuane. Frank Copenhaver, the central character, has hit a rough patch in his life. His anchors have left him. In the opening scene he is taking his wife to the airport. She is leaving him. After some brief background info, McGuane lays before us a man who's life is torn out from underhim and who doesn't really seem to know how to get back on track. Ultimately it is a story of betrayal, love and relationships. Husband and wife and daughter. In between there are great descriptions of Montana flyfishing. Although not as good as The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, this book does come pretty close.

McGuane is easily among our most talented contemporary authors. There were times that I caught myself laughing out-loud as well as smiling at truly remarkable descriptions written with such skill that I felt as if I were standing in a river somewhere in Montana. He is able to pull the reader into his world of complex and entertaining characters that operate in an equally wonderful backdrop of Montana's ranches, rivers, and small towns. If you are a fan of other McGuane titles such as "Nobody's Angel" and "Keep the Change" you will not be disappointed with "Nothing but Blue Skies." I can't think of higher praise than to be truly sad to turn the last page and realize that such a beautifully and skillfully written story is over.

I simply can not stop reading this book. Since buying it, I have reread it so many times that I will soon need to buy a new copy. If you are looking for a novel that is funny, sad, moving, painful, unforgetable, very readable, and unbelievably enjoyable, then get this book. My only warning is that you will soon need to buy a new copy for display.

Author Groneberg's spare, beautiful, prose could make you weep in its honest simplicity. He takes the reader on the most intimate of journeys into his heart, his soul, and his mind. His struggles to come to grips with the ordinariness of his life while still daring to reach for extraordinary that he dreams of, is brillantly woven into stories of the past and the present, the human and the equine. Rarely does a memoir touch my soul as this one has. Reading this felt like a privilege. I was enriched in so many ways. I am grateful for the gift od Tom Groneberg.

Mr. Groneberg knows the West and takes us there instantly. His characters struggle, live, relate, disengage, and escape just like those anywhere else, but here things move differently. Our hero's method of dealing with, or avoiding, the difficulties of human relationships is through focusing his efforts and passion on the process of training an unbroken horse. As the complex stories unravel, the dusty trail becomes clearer and the beauty of human fragility shines through.

One Good Horse picks up Tom's life where he is still in Montana working various ranch jobs to support his budding family. Dealing with all of the complications in his life, Tom decides that what he really needs is a horse. This is not to be an ordinary horse that belonged to another, Tom wants to buy an un-broke horse and go through the process of training him; not the old time approach of jumping on his back and breaking him but rather through kindness and teaching the horse what he needs to do without stress and confrontation. Concurrently Tom also chronicles the life of the horse as it eventually becomes part of the Groneberg family. For me, one of the things that makes this book special is the interjection of segments of Teddy Blue Abbott's wonderful book, We Pointed Them North. Teddy's colorful account of his cattle drive from Texas to Montana is beautifully woven in with Tom's own experiences and surprisingly transcends the century that divides the two literary works. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in the west (past and present alike) give this book a read - I believe you will thoroughly enjoy it.

"Remember that life is not always fair, but it is good. Success is measured by the size of your heart," Tom Groneberg writes in his elegiac nonfiction followup to his successful memoir, The Secret Life of Cowboys. This time out, Mr. Groneberg writes of the eponymous equine, Blue, interspersing his tale of searching for that horse with his tales as husband and father to three young sons. In the process, he acquits himself not just as an extraordinary writer, but as an extraordinary father as well.

Tom Groneberg's One Good Horse presents several characters from disparate times and influences. Several stories emerge, and are woven in, out and around the authors desire to buy, break and train one good horse. Initially, the books cast of characters seem unrelated as they move in and out of the story. But ever so masterfully this author breathes each one to life, and a common theme begins to coalesce and shimmer. Within each characters circumstance, sandwiched between all things ordinary, life folds tiny, subtle cataclysms that alter perceptions and expectations mercilessly for good or ill. The author opens a window into his own soul and humbly invites us to pause to wonder at the blessings and the disappointments of our naive and so often narrow expectations of life and its most precious commodity: time well spent; time purposefully spent. In this earthy book I can almost smell the hay and grass and hear the horses snort and breathe as I recognize life's brevity and beauty in the colors of the Montanta Sky. Just as in his book, The Secret Life of Cowboys, Tom Groneberg's transparency and gentle vulnerability in sharing his desires, his moments of bliss or epiphany and more often than not - his heartache and disappointment were a genuine delight.

When I saw Patricia Nell Warren at a reading in 1979 she said she was going to Montana to write this book. When I finally picked it up I was amazed. I would have thought that a story of a Mayan holy woman and European American Pagans sharing their traditions with each other would have been completely fictional, but the author tells us that this novel is based on stories in her family about her ancestors. This is hidden history about people that might have been forgotten if Patricia Nell Warren hadn't told us about them. I also appreciated her drawings at the head of every chapter. It just shows how much love and care went into this book.

A has-been hack desperately trying to pretend to be an author. Well worth skipping!

I read this book years ago, and am glad to see it is being reissued. I loaned my copy out to one too many friends, and am pleased to know I can order a new copy . A MUST read for anyone interested in the history of what (may have) really happened in the West.

This book is an amazing and powerful story about women and the Native American Culture. Anyone wanting to read a positive up-lifting story about women should read this incredible book! I have shared this book with many of my friends who have in turn shared it with their friends. A definite must read!

This book is both engrossing and poignant, as it tells the story of a Medicine Woman and her tribe of outcasts and misfits, and their struggles to live a simple, but spiritual, life in the "Old West". It's been a long time since I've read a book that connected me so strongly with its characters; who became life-like as the story unfolded. In addition, my eyes were opened to the possibility of what life in the "Old West" might have been like for anyone other than a white man. Its message of courage, strength, hope and endurance is a timeless one that serves as a reminder of the enduring quality of the human spirit.

I am now hooked on Du Pre and his friends in Toussaint, Montana. The descriptions of Metis history are fascinating and the abilities of the old shaman, Benetsee, are wonderful to consider. Ancient remains of early arrivals with Caucasian characteristics are thought-provoking and the complete skeleton of a T-Rex dinosaur brings out the greed in more than one group. Through it all, Du Pre fiddles, drinks his whiskey, makes love to Madelaine and solves everyone's problems.

Du Pre encounters the ancients, both human and reptilian, and those who would prey on them, for fame or for financial reward. It raises the verboten subject that some very early settlers of the Americas might be European (the fair-haired and -skinned Mandans, Ojibwe with blood types of Europeans many generations back.) While slower than others in the series, sill most wonderfully readable and enlightening. Fun to keep abreast of Gabriel's fecund daughter, the ex-alcoholic philanthropist, Benetsee who takes counsel with coyotes. Keep reading!

This was my first Gabriel Du Pre book which I chose because of the very well written and interesting reviews. For me,however,the book was one I could put down easily and forced myself to finish. The reason was twofold. I found the idiom difficult to follow. I would lose the thread of the story.

The second reason was I am a literal person and swilling down a bottle of whiskey and driving fast made me wonder if that is possible. I was annoyed.I felt the author was treating lightly a serious subject. I know this is probably the way many Metis behave but the consequences of this behavior did not seem to follow what I would expect to find in real life. Am I wrong?

The previous reviews are accurate so this is just personal.

The `Thunder Horse' of the title is Tyrannosaurus Rex, although it could also refer to the earthquake that starts out this fifth Gabriel Du Pré mystery with a bang.

All of the regulars are at the Touissant Bar listening to Du Pré make sad Voyageur music on his fiddle, when the Big One rumbles in. It doesn't seem fair that Montana should have avalanches, grizzlies, Alberta Clippers, and earthquakes, but I guess it keeps the outlanders from swarming all over the scenery.

Unlike the wholesale carnage in "Wolf, No Wolf," only one outlander on a snowmobile is murdered in "Thunder Horse." This murder, plus an assault on his friend Bart force Du Pré back into his role as a reluctant detective. He gets the usual amount of playful misdirection from the Shaman Benetsee, practical advice from his mistress, Madelaine, and homicidal commentary from the ancient Booger Tom.

The earthquake shifted mountains, dried up springs, uncovered bones---17,000 year-old human skeletons of a Caucasian people that Benetsee calls the Horned Star Folk.

How did the shaman know that a horned star amulet would be found among the bones? How old is Benetsee, anyway? Is he the enigmatic Walker in the Snow?

T Rex bones mix in with the skeletons of the mysterious Horned Star Folk, along with a yellow, radioactive uranium clay that was once used for face paint. Du Pré alternates between hard drinking, hallucinatory sweat baths, and journeys through the eerie and death-dealing badlands of Montana before he can begin to work out how these three things fit together---and how the completed pattern points to a killer.

"Thunder Horse" is one of the best of the Du Pré mysteries. Peter Bowen's Montana badlands are haunted by the people who once lived there---Norwegian homesteaders; Crow; Cheyenne; the Métis descendents of Voyageurs; the Horned Star folk who paddled down long-vanished rivers from the Arctic. Their bones and legends are the heart of this mystery.

Once upon a time I read Bowen's Gabriel Du Pré stories because they were good mystery stories. Then I read them because I loved the characters. Then I read them because, by de-romanticizing the Northwest they had created a whole different vision of life in a land well beyond my ken. Now I read them because of all of those things - there is always some gemlike bit in the story that catches my imagination. Thunder Horse is like a boxful of those moments.

Du Pré is a Metís Indian, member of a subculture that has existed before there were clearcut boundaries and fences. It is a composite culture, often ignored, but of great richness and importance in American history. It was the Metis, after all, who led Lewis and Clark west, who carried the furs to market, and learned to play a music which can compel the most somnolent to toe tapping.

Many peoples have crisscrossed the north of Montana, not just the Metís, and Thunder Horse is about the most ancient of these, the Horned Star People, who came across the land bridges 15,000 years ago. A gravesite is discovered in Du Pré 's country on land destined to become a dude trout fishing in the middle of nowhere. When bones from a Tyrannosaurus Rex are also found Du Pré quickly realizes that the trout are just a ruse and the new owners are really looking for a dinosaur skeleton worth millions. And the Horned Star dead are just a nuisance to the hunters. Even in Toussaint, Montana, big money means big trouble. In no time flat a more modern victim is found.

The real mystery isn't the murder, though, but the intricate relationship between the pieces of a millennia old puzzle. Dinosaur bones, 15,000 year old Caucasian skeletons, and local Indian practices from as late as the past century all blend together into a story that is half anthropology and half a deeper mysticism that us modern guys from Detroit can really only guess at. Bowen manages to bring is together into a story that is as funny as it is respectful of the deepest of values. I find myself inhaling the story at one gulp and then desperately wanting more.

John Coston has written a rapid-paced true crime thriller about Wayne Nance who killed mostly women and girls for 12 years.
The actual number of victims is not known.

His childhood was a disturbing one with Nance frequently getting into trouble and in one instance showing a cruel streak directed at some kittens. He also had an acute interest in the occult and sacrificed animals. Nance was definitely a loosely-wrapped head case when he started murdering as a teenager. What made him so dangerous was his ability to earn peoples' trust and come across as almost normal while hiding the fact that he was "a mercurial,seething psycho".

Like a lot of serial killers you read about, Wayne Nance made mistakes and kept a few trophies. He avoided detection in small part by the tunnel vision of the sheriff in one of the cases. What's frustrating about the case was the fact that one of the investigators early on suspected him but couldn't get enough evidence. Things were a lot harder before DNA became a tool for law enforcement and Nance was very lucky.

He was also an anomaly among serial killers, prowling a very small area and avoiding detection for more than a decade.

"To Kill and Kill Again" is a riveting true crime book. Among the best at telling the story not only of the killer and his victims,but also the heroic survivor who ended the killing spree.

I lived in Missoula MT at the time this guy was on his murder spree. My sister went to school with him. I was in school at the time and not even aware of any of this going on. This book is very interesting and certainly would make any reader sharpen their radar for wierdos. Keep your head on a swival and maintain awareness. I could not put the book down, it is very good and very creepy.

When I was 5 years old in Missoula, Wayne Nance murdered my best friend. I will never, even all these years later, shake what he did - this book helped me come to grips with a small part of what happened as I was too young then to understand. I'm glad for that, but on the other hand, I'm torn. The victims of his horrific crimes deserve far more attention than he got in the end. My friend deserved better. *ALL* his victims deserved better.

Definitly a book for adults only, this is the tale of a furniture delivery man named John Wayne Nance who is confirmed as having killed four and possibly eight people in a twelve year period up until his death in 1986. He attacked a couple in their home who fought back and killed him. My heart went out to the victims and their families, in particular three orphaned children. John Nance must have been SICK to do the revolting crimes he did and to hell he can go!! The book is a moving account of what happened and also very graphic. Two of the victims remain unidentified to this day. May those who died rest in peace.

I worked at Conlins in 1982-83, and became good friends with Sheila Claxton and Wayne Nance. She was another sales person and Wayne was one of the delivery guys. We spent many hours at work and after together as friends. He was very mysterious to say the least. When he did weird things we just agreed it was just Wayne. After he tried to kill our friends and Manager of the Conlins Store, we knew he had done it and all the other killings, but it was not until I finished the book that it became real to me... and I was truly afraid....

I had moved to Missoula just as the Ministers wife was killed, and then the children found along the highway, later women, and former clients dying under mysterious circumstances. Then having it all placed in front of you and finding out it is a friend who has done it was almost too much to believe.

This was a wonderful, suspence filled, truthful book and I thank him for telling the story. Our lives will never be the same. I am sure you will share it with others after you have read it.

Simply put, this is a book of short stories revolving around a make-believe small town in Montana. Through his short stories, the reader is taken past the "simple-life" surface and into the complex relationships of a close-nit community. If it weren't for the mountains and trout streams described near the town of Travers Corners you could probably relate this book to any rural small town in America. The two main characters, Jud and Henry, are old friends and fishing guides. They remind me of some of the cowboys that I've met on a few pack trips in Yellowstone. Many of them are expert story tellers. The best thing about this book is Waldie's ability to tell a story.

One enjoyable walk through a small Montana town. Fly fisher or not you will find, as we have, that you keep returning again and again.

Jud (one of the main characters), his friends and neighbors have come to feel like personal friends. We are anxiously waiting for the next collection of stories to get to know them better!

This book is my favorite in a great series of books- The Travers Corners series. The characters walk off the pages. They are finely drawn, colorful, real, everyday people. The books help me keep a Montana State of Mind in my consciousness. The fishing, the tales, the warmth, the locale and the humor make this series an antidote to life in a large city. Just knowing that Travers Corners is there & I can pick up a book & experience it helps me enjoy the pleasures/pitfalls of life in L.A.
Keep the stories coming.

I found this a wonderful book that relates well to so many things in life, both past and present. You can identify with the characters as to the times you may have done similiar things yourself. Very entertaining, one minute you may be laughing yourself silly and then two pages later crying tears of sadness.

I should preface this by saying the I come from a line of fly-fisherman - my father with whom I have fly fished many times, my grandfather with whom I was never given the opportunity to fly fish, and so on down the line.
I received this book from my father two years ago as a Christmas present. He had read only months previously and I had heard him speak only a few hushed words about it. If you know my father that means that the subject of those words is something worthy of respect and reverence.
I was then not long out of college and trying to find my way in the world - success, fame, and all the trappings. Something had been lost to be while I was in school desperately studying to be the next whomever. Anyhow, I remember very distinctly opening the book and reading those first few words. Forgive the unintended pun, but I was hooked.
There were times when Mr. Waldie's simple descriptions of the landscape and the riverscape brought chills to my body. I have been to such places only in my dreams, but now I felt I was somehow closer. And then came the difficult stories, told with such a delicate and tender touch that a lesser author would have utterly failed to grasp. Like a fine cast upriver and into the crook of a teetering sycamore, there's a certain nuance that can't be taught and can't be learned just done. I am not afraid to say that I can think of a few times that I sat alone in my apartment and carefully laid the book down after a story and stood up for a mug of tea. And it was the dust in the apartment that made my eyes water, I'm sure. And that tightness in my throat - the kind that makes your chest ache - that had to be a cold coming on, of course. And other times, my laughing not only made my cat bounce recklessly from wall to wall, but I am pretty sure the newborn in the apartment beneath me woke up. The point being is this: Mr. Waldie had looked me in the eye and asked me a very pointed and loaded question just six words long: When's the last time you fished?
Things started looking up the next weekend when I was in the mountains of North Carolina, rod in hand.
I just laid the book down, finished, for the fifth time and felt that others should be shown this amazing wonder of comfortable honest stories from a small town. I don't know how else to persuade a reader to pick this collection of stories up other than to quote what my father inscribed on the title page:

"Rob- I think that this book will always serve as a gentle reminder that good and decent do count."

My husband gave me this book for my birthday. It was the only book I took with me on a business trip to Vancouver. I REALLY wanted to like it. I actually wanted to love it. I was completely frustrated by it: not the language, which I found the most interesting part of the whole thing. I just thought the characters were smug and full of themselves and the mystery wasn't very compelling and all the good stuff happened in between the chapters. And if Du Pre went out to see if the wise old Benetsee had come home ONE MORE TIME I think I would have started ripping pages out of the damn thing. Bowen needs to write a book about the music of the Metis (the only exciting parts of the book were when Du Pre and Bassman and Pere Godin were playing their music) and forget about the "mystery" since he's not any more involved in it than we aren't.

It is easy to get accustomed to Peter Bowen's mysteries starring Gabriel Du Pre. In a sense, the Metis Indian is someone we all want to be. Smart, deeply in tough with his community and its environs, a man with strong relationships, good friend, and a wry, penetrating wit. Equally at home with the mysticism of medicine men and FBI agents. And very determined to see his way to the truth.

The truth is what is most elusive in The Tumbler. Du Pre and Benetsee (the ageless medicine man) have discovered some important Lewis & Clark artifacts (or have they?) and the government is suing to get them, people are dropping money in an effort to buy than, and someone seems perfectly willing to murder to get their hands on them. In the midst of this Julie, the niece of Bart Fascelli (Du Pre's rich friend) shows up in Toussaint to work on her own issues. All this makes for a rich, multi-layered stew of motives and priorities.

In retrospect, the story is even more of a tapestry than Bowen's previous efforts. Thieves, murderers, the law, sorcerers and gymnasts are the threads, and Du Pre, with the help of his companion Madelaine and the mysterious Benetsee must find where the knot is and untie it before the worst happens. Bowen's stories are noted for luring you in with light banter and intriguing characters only to his you firmly over the head at the end. And The Tumbler is no exception. Be prepared.

One thing I had not realized is that Peter Bowen is a private person. I was curious about why this particular title was chosen. Young Julie and her boyfriend are gymnasts, which is part of it, but my intuition tells me that there is more. Something like the sacred clowns of the Navaho. After scouring the web I can report that other than book reviews and short bios, Peter Bowen has a very light network footprint for this day and age. Yet another mystery in a book that asks more questions than it answers. In many ways this is the most thoughtful and, perhaps, the best written of the Du Pre stories. Enjoy.

Peter Bowen has a knack for capturing the language and customs of the Metis in a way that makes you feel you are really there -- then throws in a mystery that keeps you guessing until the last page.

The latest installment in the DuPree mysteries was a little more convoluted than I expected. Even when I finished, I had to go back and reread parts of the story to figure out just why/what happened. Bowen never spells it out, he leaves you to work it out for yourself, much like Benetsee does to DuPree.
As far as the mystery goes, it's not my favorite in the series, Ash Child and Notches worked better in that department. But for pure enjoyment,the storytelling was superb, the humor wry, and the people so real you feel you could eat at the roadhouse next friday.
As to the other reviewer who disliked the book, I think this story would be more enjoyable to people who are already somewhat familliar with the series than to a first timer. The relationships of the characters are more important to the story than the mystery. If you can start with the first book and work your way through, you'll get far more out of it.
I did like the cast of players in the front. Finally we have a count of and names for Madaline's 4 (+-) children (Although I have to wonder what happened to Stephanie, her oldest from Coyote Wind, Simon and little Sebastian, and the two or three other children named earlier in the series...maybe I'll just chalk it up to DuPree or possibly Bowen having one too many ditches...)
But as for The Tumbler, fans of the series will definitly enjoy this latest installment. I look forward to the next book.

Violence is never far removed from Gabriel Du Pre's life. It starts when an angry girlfriend breaks in on Du Pre's band and starts shooting the bass player. But things get worse when someone attacks one of his friends and maces the friend's daughter. And the legal troubles Du Pre finds himself in over the journals he's discovered from the Lewis and Clark Expedition suddenly explode when someone starts offering big bucks for the journals--no questions asked. Du Pre isn't selling, but Indian wise man Benetsee tells Du Pre that his troubles are only starting. Before long, there will be death. And Du Pre and his friends will be in the middle of it.

Author Peter Bowen tells a fascinating story of old treasure, modern greed, Indian wisdom, and the west. Du Pre, Benetsee, and several of the other characters ring absolutely true and Bowen paints a vivid picture of rural life in Montana.

As with the other books in the Gabriel Du Pre series, THE TUMBLER is both a fascinating mystery and an even more fascinating look into character and the land. Du Pre and the other characters don't speak much and when they do, their dialect takes a bit of getting used to, but I found charm, wisdom, and a nice sense of humor combined in what they had to say. THE TUMBLER is a definite winner with plenty of red herrings, lots of people with more money than sense, and an ending that is exciting and satisfying, while being as wistful as is Bowen's picture of the dying west.

This is another of the stories in the series, and hard to put down once started.

Matt and Sam Two Wolves discover that a slaver is working with renegade Indians to raid small towns and isolated farms and ranches, killing adults and spiriting away young girls.

The girls will be sold to the captain of a cargo ship turned slave vessel, who will transport the girls to various countries where young American girls will bring large sums of money.

They initially encounter Dick Wellman, an old mountain man, and his companion, Laurie, who is seeking her brother somewhere in the West. Dick is trying to find his granddaughter, Jenny, who has been taken by the Indians and presumably sold to Lake.

They track the children to a fortress in Mexico, and with liberal use of dynamite free Jenny and the other young girls.

Then ensues a series of encounters with the criminals and their Indian partners, during which Dick is killed. He had willed his ranch to Laurie and Jenny, and in the end Matt and Sam ride away leaving Laurie sad to lose him.

This is a must-read for anyone who loves Western fiction.

William W. Johnstone has done it again. He has created a new set of characters to rate right up next to Smoke and Preacher. But this Blood Bond is of a different type than the two legendary mountain men, these are blood brothers. Two men, from two different worlds brought together through a bond of trust, and curiosity of each others ways. Matt Bodine, a son of a frontier rancher's family, and Samuel Two Wolves, an Eastern educated son of a Cheyenne War Chief and a White aristocrat. These men have a close, yet volatile kinship. Both are torn between feelings of respect for the "old ways" and the certain knowledge that those ways cannot survive the oncoming settlement of the West.
A must for any Johnstone diehard. You will ride trails these men have ridden, and share in the kinship that they feel for each other. Well written, with strong character development. You will look forward to each new adventure these two brothers share in their, Blood Bond.

I enjoyed this book and was set to wondering if the author was going to cross link this series with the mountain man series when Smoke Jenson was mentioned and when they linked up with a man who knew him. It didn't happen. One wonders if one day (how many books in the future) it will.

William W Johnston is one of my all time favorite authors and he has introduced two new story charactors in this book and carries them thru a very exciting tale of the old west, with focus on the Great Indian Wars of the 1870s on the great plains of Wyoming and Montana.

Excellent read since it delves into actual history.

Brotherhood of the Gun is the 2nd book using William W Johnston's two latest charactors and a most exciting tale, framed in the Arizona Territory during the Apache Wars.

An excellent read for any lover of the old west.