The Genuine Article

It is always nice to read a book that takes place at the same time of year that one is waking up with. It makes it easy to slip right into the pages.

THE GENUINE ARTICLE

A. B. Guthrie Jr


Now it was June and it was the time of growth, of soil and seed hope, but there was no hope for F. Y. Grimsley who even though he was found dead was still not spoken of in good terms. He was a rancher in a small Montana community who had twenty thousand acres and five hundred head of cattle. He had recently been in town complaining to Sheriff Chick Charleston about the loss of some of his cattle and he was pointing his suspicious finger at some of the local Indian population as the culprits.


Jase Beard is just back in town for the summer after two years at college and the Sheriff has made him a deputy once again. The death of Grimsley appears to be a murder by an unusual weapon and there is no shortage of suspects.  One of Grimsley's  sort of business partners is a local Indian Chief Eagle Charlie with an extraordinarily beautiful wife Rosa that he barters for beef for his tribe.


Before long another murder by the same method occupy the sheriff and Jase. A severe rain storm, really a cloud burst complicates the investigation by bringing down a bridge and interrupting communications and increases the suspense. There is a lot of excitement, a local girl gets attacked, there is a religious revival going on, some happenings at the downtown saloon. It is not New York but who wants New York!


Guthrie brings together a likeable cast of characters and a believable story. A genuine article. It is something out of the ordinary which is what I am always looking for. I spent a summer in the late '60s in Montana and there was that uneasy distant treatment of the native population. I was a college girl from the East Coast and I danced with an Indian boy. I was told that no white boy would dance with me after that. And so it was. It was fine with me.