It’s a book ten years in the making, the anticipated release of which has been agonizing to say the least, and a book which has not failed to deliver.
I began reading Guy Vanderhaeghe about ten years ago, and soon came to think of him as ‘the Steinbeck of Saskatchewan.’ I soaked up every work he had published, until this book made it official for me… Steinbeck is now ‘the Vanderhaeghe of California.’
Like Vanderhaeghe, Steinbeck placed most of his stories in his home locale. John Steinbeck used Salinas, while Guy Vanderhaeghe sets his stories in Connaught.
Having grown up and lived in smalltown, rural Saskatchewan for a good part of my life, I can appreciate the cast of characters Vanderhaeghe creates. In fact, I can even identify with some of them.
It is late summer, 1939, and war clouds are once again brewing in Europe. A world away, Connaught oddball Ernie Sickert commits an horrific murder and, in the middle of a paralyzing torrential rainfall, flees with his ragamuffin twelve-year old girlfriend. It ultimately falls to local WW1 veteran brothers Oliver and Jack Dill to bring him to justice. The pursuit draws in a cast of players so diverse, so surprising, so complex, that the spiderweb tale Vanderhaeghe weaves becomes spellbinding.
As you’ve probably guessed, I highly recommend this book. I promise you won’ be sorry!
The Prairie Fiddler 