Wolverine Creek

When homesteaders vanish without a trace in the untamed Saskatchewan frontier, two mismatched North-West Mounted Police officers ride into danger once more.

In this atmospheric sequel to The Laundryman, Corporal Aloysius Belvedere and Surgeon Virgil Montgomery are dispatched from Battleford to investigate a string of baffling disappearances along the Carlton Trail near remote Wolverine Creek, a place still raw from the 1885 North-West rebellion. Belvedere brings his terrier, a Winchester, and a taste for whisky that has already cost him dearly. Montgomery carries his medical bag and a box of oils; he paints the vast sky whenever the blackflies allow.

The unlikely pair find a land where secrets lay hidden in the poplar bluffs and along the muddy trails. As they chart a wary path among suspicious homesteaders, enigmatic locals, and echoes of violence, they confront not only external threats but their own personal demons in a land where justice is hard-won and the past refuses to stay buried.

What begins as a search for missing men deepens into a reckoning over who gets to keep a piece of ground and what price is paid when the law arrives too late or too roughly. Montgomery keeps painting what he sees. Belvedere keeps doing what he must. Neither is certain the country will let them leave as they came.

With rich historical detail, lyrical prose, and unforgettable characters, Dwayne Brenna delivers another masterful blend of literary historical fiction and gripping mystery.

Praise for the previous book, The Laundryman

"A fast-paced, always arresting historical mystery..." -- Dave Margoshes (A Simple Carpenter)

"A hard one to put down, a classic murder mystery that is nothing like any whodunit I've ever read." -- David Carpenter (The Education of Angie Merasty)

"Captivating, enthralling, and truly thought-provoking historical fiction..." -- Author Anthony Avina