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The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

"When the diary of her great-great-great-grandfather, Arthur Beaucarne is unearthed, Betsy sees it as a possible path to getting a paper published or a book deal. It's the jumpstart her career needs. What she finds is a tale of desperation, deprivation, and terror soaked in blood. This book would have been 5 stars except for the ending, which was just a bit too literal for me." 

⭐⭐⭐⭐️

Pros: Great pacing and tension/Good Stab is a heart-breakingly tragic hero, doomed to be a monster but still with a gentle heart, and he wants nothing more than to go back to his people, but he knows he never can.  

Cons: Some of the names that Good Stab uses for animals were lost on me, but it didn’t take away from the story overall/The ending took off a star; it was just kind of silly. It would’ve been better if the fate of Beaucarne remained a mystery, in my opinion. 

Full Review: 

When the diary of Arthur Beaucarne, a Lutheran minister, is found behind the walls of a building soon to be renovated, it's immediately sent to a nearby university. It dates back to the early days of the   1900s, in Montana, when the Native Americans had more or less been "tamed," and progress is on the lips of every white man intent on settling and making a life out in the West. Betsy Beaucarne, who just happens to be working on trying to get tenure at the University manages to get a copy of the Diary and since Arthur Beaucarne was, in fact, her great, great, great grand-father, well, who better to read through the diary than she? She has a feeling that this will be the impetus to launching her career.  

Boy, is she in for a surprise. 

The diary follows Beaucarne in his service to the Lord, shepherding the flock of the small settlement of Miles City, Montana. The Blackfeet Indians have more or less been driven from their homeland, and there's not much trouble, that is, until a man is found dead, all his skin removed, his tongue cut out, and his face painted in shades of black and yellow.

Shortly after, Beaucarne sees a Native American attending his services. He wears the frock of a clergyman and dark glasses. Curious, Beaucarne approaches the man, who says his name is Good Stab. And as an honorable man of the cloth, Beaucarne does what he thinks is best and offers to listen to this man's confession. 

Good Stab's tale is more bloodsoaked and horrifying than Beaucarne ever could have imagined. 

This book had me in its thrall from the very first page and never, ever let go. I was terrified and yet fascinated, intrigued as to what more could possibly happen to Good Stab and how he would manage to survive. Not only that, what would become of Beaucarne and all the rest in Miles City? This was an intense, thrilling, heart-breaking, roller-coaster ride of a book, and I absolutely devoured it. 

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