The Frontier Trilogy

Set in the late nineteenth-century Canadian and American West, Guy Vanderhaeghe's bestselling and multi-award-winning epic Frontier Trilogy is now available together for the first time. The Englishman's Boy brilliantly links together Hollywood in the 1920s with one of the bloodiest, most brutal events of the nineteenth-century Canadian West--the Cypress Hills Massacre--to tell an unforgettable novel about power, greed, and the pull of dreams that has at its centre the haunting story of a young drifter--"the Englishman's boy"--whose fate, ultimately, is a tragic one. Winner of Canada Reads 2004, The Last Crossing tells the epic story of an unlikely group--including two Englishmen in search of their lost brother; their half-Blackfoot, half-Scottish guide; a Civil War veteran searching for salvation; a young woman determined to avenge her sister's brutal murder--who make the treacherous journey across the unknown landscape of the West, only to become entangled in an unfolding drama that forces each person to come to terms with his own demons. Set in the aftermath of Custer's defeat at the Battle of Little Big Horn, A Good Man weaves together the lives of a compellingly drawn cast of characters, including Wesley Case, a disgraced military officer who works as a liaison between the American and Canadian militaries in an effort to contain the Native Americans' unresolved anger in the wake of the Civil War; Ada Tarr, the beautiful, outspoken widow he has fallen in love with; and Michael Dunne, her disturbed admirer. When the American government unleashes its final assault on the Indians, Dunne commences his own vicious plan for vengeance in one last feverish attempt to claim Ada as his own.

VOL. I: BLOOD RED MOON Follow the brothers as they journey west to California. Gold and fortune await, but so too does the blood moon - an omen warning death follows close behind. Brotherhood has kept them together; jealousy threatens to tear them apart. VOL. II: THE CLOCK STRIKES NOON Trapped, guns near empty, the clock is ticking. Walker must make the choice: to do what's easy, or to do what's right. The railroad shines like a beacon of the modern age; for the people of Cooper's Ridge, it brings only darkness. VOL. III: THE RATTLESNAKE'S KISS Hidden deep in the dust of the American West, the outlaw comes face to face with the lawman in search of justice. His life of murder is far behind, but can he ever escape the man he was born to become? This book also includes two short stories - San Sebastian and Noche de Sangre - which expand the world of the plays.

They crossed the vast frontier in pursuit of a dream, men and women whose courage and daring shaped the future of the great young nation and forged an unforgettable legacy passion and adventure in a brave new land they called home… To the brothers Clay and Jefferson Holt, the western territory is a land of breathtaking beauty and unlimited possibility. But, it is also a place of lawlessness and sudden, brutal violence. Sworn to bring a longtime enemy to justice, Clay heads north to Canada and a dangerous showdown, while in far-off North Carolina, Jeff is stocked by a ruthless killer determined to destroy his family. As war cries fill the air, the Holts must fight once more for their home, their nation, and the magnificent dynasty that will live forever in the pages of history.

The author of The Overmountain Men and The Canebrake Men continues his Tennessee Frontier Trilogy as the American Revolution rages in the wilderness. Two years after the colonies declare their independence, the American and British armies fight a seemingly endless series of bloody battles in the east. But on the Tennessee frontier, the war is fought by far fewer rules of engagement. In the wilderness, those who strike silent and swift win the day, every tree or rocky hill might hide an enemy waiting with bullet and blade, and a painless death is a rare gift. It is in this chaotic land that frontiersman Joshua Colter leads the newly formed Patriot Rangers militia against both the hated British and their Cherokee and Chickamauga allies. The war has already cost all sides a great deal in blood and betrayal. But for Joshua, the war is about to bring the pain of his own past into the conflict as old enemies return to exact their revenge . . .

Historians have long assumed that ethnic and racial divisions in post–Civil War America were reflected in the U.S. Army, of whose enlistees 40 percent were foreign-born. Now Kevin Adams shows that the frontier army was characterized by a “Victorian class divide” that overshadowed ethnic prejudices. Class and Race in the Frontier Army marks the first application of recent research on class, race, and ethnicity to the social and cultural history of military life on the western frontier. Adams draws on a wealth of military records and soldiers’ diaries and letters to reconstruct everyday army life—from work and leisure to consumption, intellectual pursuits, and political activity—and shows that an inflexible class barrier stood between officers and enlisted men. As Adams relates, officers lived in relative opulence while enlistees suffered poverty, neglect, and abuse. Although racism was ingrained in official policy and informal behavior, no similar prejudice colored the experience of soldiers who were immigrants. Officers and enlisted men paid much less attention to ethnic differences than to social class—officers flaunting and protecting their status, enlisted men seething with class resentment. Treating the army as a laboratory to better understand American society in the Gilded Age, Adams suggests that military attitudes mirrored civilian life in that era—with enlisted men, especially, illustrating the emerging class-consciousness among the working poor. Class and Race in the Frontier Army offers fresh insight into the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity in late-nineteenth-century America.