Frontier Partisans

The Adventurers, Rangers and Scouts Who Fought the Battles of Empire

‘Wolves Of Eden’

, by

It’s dangerous walking into bookstores. Books jump of the shelves and force themselves upon me. There I was in Dudley’s in Bend, minding me own business, waiting for Marilyn to pick up her cooking oils at a little boutique shop she favors when BAM! I’m bitten in both hands by Wolves of Eden.

I fought them off and escaped, but only temporarily.

Dakota Territory, 1866. Following the murders of a frontier fort’s politically connected sutler and his wife in their illicit off-post brothel, Lieutenant Martin Molloy and his long-suffering orderly, Corporal Daniel Kohn, are ordered to track down the killers and return with “boots for the gallows” to appease powerful figures back in Washington.  The men journey west to a distant outpost in a valley at once beautiful and savage, where the soldiers inside the fort—from Irish Fenian rebels to anti-immigrant nativists—prove to be violently opposed to their investigations.

Meanwhile, unable to adapt to life as migrant farm laborers in peacetime Ohio, Irish immigrant brothers and Civil War veterans, Michael and Thomas O’Driscoll, reenlist in the army and are shipped west to Fort Phil Kearny in the heart of the Powder River Valley.  Here they are thrown into ferocious combat with Red Cloud’s coalition of Native tribes fighting American expansion into their hunting grounds.  Amidst the daily carnage, Thomas finds a love that will lead to a moment of violence as brutal as any they have witnessed in battle—a moment that will change their lives forever.

Blending intimate historical detail and emotional acuity, Wolves of Eden sets these four men on a deadly collision course in a haunting narrative that explores the injustice of warfare and the resilience of the human spirit.

Yeah, OK, that’s moving to the head of the just-read-a-novel-dammit queue. And I ain’t waiting in line at No. 5 for the library’s sole copy, which is “on order.” A visit to Paulina Springs Books is in order. (Sorry Dudley’s — hometown book store gets the sale. I’ll make up for it with multiple cups of your excellent coffee).
*
Oh, it gets worse.
McCarthy is also the author of two highly-regarded crime novels set in West Cork, which was the Wild West during the Irish Civil War of the 1920s. Here’s the word on Peeler:
West Cork. November 1920. The Irish War of Independence rages. The body of a young woman is found brutally murdered on a windswept hillside, a scrapboard sign covering her mutilated body reads “TRATOR.”
Traitor.
Acting Sergeant Séan O’Keefe of the Royal Irish Constabulary, a wounded veteran of the Great War, is assigned to investigate the crime, aided by sinister detectives sent from Dublin Castle to ensure he finds the killer, just so long as the killer he finds best serves the purposes of the crown in Ireland. . .
The IRA has instigated its own investigation into the young woman’s death, assigning young Volunteer Liam Farrell – failed gunman and former law student – to the task of finding a killer it cannot allow to be one of its own. Unknown to each other, the RIC Constable and the IRA Volunteer relentlessly pursue the truth behind the savage killing, their investigations taking them from the bullet-pocked lanes and thriving brothels of a war-torn Cork city to the rugged, deadly hills of West Cork, both seeking a killer, both seeking to stay alive in a time where “murder’s as common as rain and no one knows a thing about it, even when they do.”
McCarthy looks like he’d just as soon punch you in the face as sign your book, which I also like. (Deuce Richardson will no doubt smile at the glimpse of a Motorhead t-shirt). Clearly, our kinda writer, and clearly I’m going to have to read ’em all. Doesn’t the bastard know I have a red-dot sight to purchase? Yeah, like he gives a fuck, right?…

Comments

    • Black Tyrone says

      I would be remiss if I did not bring to all your attention the fine novels by the great baseball writer, Donald Honig. “The Sword of General Englund” a novel in the Dakota Territory 1878 published in 1996 as well as another “The Ghost of Major Pryor” a novel in the Montana Territory 1870 published 1997. Both are published by Scribner and still available.

      Thanks Jim for the advisal on this additional and recent entry of Western Frontier /mystery/crime fiction.

      Reply

  2. Rick Schwertfeger says

    Ouch. First I’m supposed to go to Houston, of all places, to look at an old gun. (Why doesn’t Rigby bring that gun to Austin. Don’t they know that this is where “the right people” live?) And now, I’ve got another couple of books to read! Oh, the burdens we carry.
    BUT, damn, these certainly are must reads. Thanks!

    Reply

      • Rick Schwertfeger says

        The exceedingly pleasant wealthy dad of a friend of mine once bought me lunch at a restaurant in the ultra high end Highland Park Village outdoor shopping “mall” in ultra high end Dallas suburb Highland Park. Lacrosse connection. And there’s a Baretta store in Highland Park Village that would be appropriate. Er, ah, except that the Rigby dealership is in Houston. More hunting bubbas down there, I suppose.

        Reply

  4. Breaker Morant says

    Enjoyed (Hell, I loved) Three-Day Road which fortunately the library had.

    One thing about novels is that they certainly are usually easier to read than non-fiction which I tend to focus on.

    I just checked out Bone Rattler which I saw here.

    Wolves of Eden looks good. Intriguing for its setting in Sioux Country which is somewhat unusual in fiction. It seems that fiction seems to be Comanche/Apache oriented.

    Don’t worry, I have a ton of Sioux site pictures from trips this summer, but I have been swamped and haven’t had time to do anything at Smoke of the Sioux. However, winter is here and I will soon have time to work on it.

    Reply

    • JimC says

      “Don’t worry, I have a ton of Sioux site pictures from trips this summer, but I have been swamped and haven’t had time to do anything at Smoke of the Sioux. However, winter is here and I will soon have time to work on it.”

      Good news, that.

      Reply

      • Breaker Morant says

        Thanks: I have previously mentioned that I came up with the phrase (I think) -I claim it anyway as I have not seen it anywhere “The Ragged Edges of the Land” and how I love them -seems Rullmanesque and so forth and another phrase struck my mind as I was sitting on deer stand in the middle of our most raggedy-edge piece of land and it struck me that there is an “Infinity of Land (and experiences)” on this 130-acre piece of farmland with 90-acres tillable because of all the ragged edges there.

        I have mentioned before that if any other farmers had it-it would be drained, cleared and ruined for another 10 acres of corn.

        I got something brewing on that in the back (front?) of my mind. I had also started putting Smoke of Africa into book form. So that is another winter project.

        Reply

  7. lane batot says

    Serves you right. I’m now immersed well into “The Orenda” by Joseph Boyden, and guess WHERE I first learned of that book? Yeah; uh-huh!……Anyway, since the dawn of the Kingdom Of Amazon, I RARELY buy books new from a bookstore anymore(where I used to RANT at the RIDICULOUS prices they charge for them), but simply use them as places to SCOUT, and then check out used copies on Amazon. This saves my peasant-arse TONS of money, and allows me to acquire far more books. It really is the ONLY WAY for those of us hovering about the Poverty Level in America, who have serious reading addictions……

    Reply

  8. Eccentric Cowboy says

    I feel your pain pard. Me and my wallet. It’s almost a curse in this day and age to have such a glut of good books almost at our fingertips!
    Just last month I happened to be hunting through the digital veldt, not expecting to come across much, when I spied upon a great beauty hiding just within the thicket. I could scarcely believe my eyes! It was a trio of genuine copies of Bell of Africa! I’d heard stories of course and launched many book safaris trying to find one for my own trophy shelf, but they were unbearably scarce and those few I did see were far beyond my range.
    So you can bet when I saw a fresh copy with better than seventy pounds per tusk that I took the shot, even though it was a mighty long one and I was short on ammunition. Took a few days to finally track him down, but now a genuine copy of Bell of Africa now sits on my shelf. It took years and much effort, but that makes the victory that much the sweeter.

    Problem is, I still have a mess of other ones to still track down!
    Will the hunt for literature never end for us hopeless bibliophiles?

    Reply

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