Search results for ""Author A. B. Guthrie""

In the latest in his series of light-hearted stories, A. B. Guthrie transplants Midbury, Montana, sleuth Chick Charleston to a brand-new setting, a quiet English village in the Cotswolds. Chick and his wife, Geeta, are vacationing at the Ram’s Head Inn, a quaint hotel in beautiful Upper Beechwood, where Geeta plans to trace her ancestors, but when an unpopular guest checks out early with a knife in his back, Chick gets involved in the search for the killer. Accustomed to the authority of a badge, Chick unfortunately can only assist with the investigation being run by Detective Chief Inspector Fred Perkins and his vindictive supervisor, Superintendent Hawley, whose style of police work doesn’t always agree with Chick’s. But Chick’s Montana experience and good common sense serve him well as he unravels more than one English mystery. Full of the quirky characters and dry wit for which Guthrie is famous, Murder in the Cotswolds is a welcome addition to the series that the Cleveland Plain Dealer has called “just about perfect of its kind.”

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At a difficult and sad time in his family life, A. B. Guthrie, Jr., turned for surcease to reading western and whodunit novels. In his autobiography, The Blue Hen's Chick (also a Bison Book), he touches on that moment when he realized he could write as well as or better than the published plot-spinners. "What about a mystery and cow-country myth in combination?" he mused, "So far as I could recall, the two had never been blended. All right. I'd blend them." The result was his first novel, Murders at Moon Dance, appearing in 1943. It was an audacious debut with bold characterizations and a sharply etched, atmospheric setting The dusty town of Moon Dance, smacked down between barren mountains and a badland named the Freezeout, would also be a back-drop for The Big It and Other Stories (1960). In Guthrie's hand, raw vitality replaces the woodenness of much writing in the genre, and unexpected grace notes in the verbal rhythms suggest the author of The Big Sky (1947) and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Way West (1949).

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A. B. Guthrie Jr. is best known for his historical fiction; his classic novel The Way West earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Guthrie had the ability to create memorable yet believable characters, was skillful in his use of narration and point of view, and possessed a notable flair for describing the landscape of the American West. It is unsurprising, perhaps, that Guthrie also had a deft talent for short fiction. The Big It and Other Stories collects his diverse shorter tales, written between 1946 and 1960.Often relying on a few recorded facts as a springboard for his lively and sympathetic imagination, Guthrie explores many of his favorite themes—communion between man and nature, the test of manhood, resilience in the face of new or dangerous situations—with a sure and steady hand that always holds the reader’s interest. Full of humor and excitement, The Big It and Other Stories showcases Guthrie’s art in a new genre and spotlights the love for the West and for westerners that is the hallmark of his writing.

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In these pages you will come to fall in love with a ruggedly diverse and strikingly beautiful state, a land that takes hold and won’t let go. Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome is widely recognized as a classic history and delightful ode to the idiosyncratic personalities, restless landscape, unforgettable peoples, and lively history of the Treasure State. William Kittredge provides a new introduction for this edition.

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