Tragedy on the Plains

A Good Man is the final volume in Guy Vanderhaeghe's trilogy of novels set on the Northern Great Plains of the 1870s, along the border of the United States and Canada. The three books engage with actual and, for the most part, terrible historical events, finding much of their story in the intentions and actions of real historical figures. The first, The Englishman's Boy, is peopled in part by the American white and mixed-race wolfers who crossed the border into Canada in 1873 and committed the Cypress Hills Massacre, slaughtering at least twenty-three Assiniboine Indians. The second, The Last Crossing,gives a role to the famous scout and hunter Jerry Potts, a virtuoso of Plains lore and languages, Indian and white. The present novel has the most illustrious cast of all, including Sitting Bull, a number of other Indian leaders, and a couple of key Canadian and U.S. military officers.