The Last Crossing

Book excerpt: Journey from Victorian England to the whiskey trading posts of the Old West in this epic award-winning bestseller from the author of The Englishman’s Boy. In the late nineteenth century, Englishmen Charles and Addington Gaunt are sent by their father to find their brother Simon, a missionary who has gone missing in the wilds of the American West. In the outreaches of the Montana frontier, the brothers hire a guide—a half Blackfoot, half Scot named Jerry Potts—to lead them further north into the area where Simon was last seen. As the party heads out, it grows to include a journalist, a saloonkeeper, a Civil War veteran in search of love, and a young woman bent on revenge. There’s no telling what awaits them . . . “One of North America’s best writers . . . A feast of a book.” —Annie Proulx, The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Stuffed with enough goodies to keep us entertained for days.” —The New York Times Book Review “Quest and revenge, love and loss converge before the novel’s satisfying final twist.” —The Boston Globe “The quality of its plotting, vivid characterizations and descriptions and dark humor place it firmly in the company of the likes of Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch