Last Best Books Spring 2025: "The Smoke In Our Eyes," "The Bitter Roots," and "Deadly Yellowstone"

The Smoke In Our Eyes

By James Grady

We are honored to be able to say that James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor and a wealth of other thrillers and literary novels, is a Distinctly Montana contributor. We can also assure you that it shouldn't cast any doubt on our neutrality when we tell you that you should most certainly go out and buy a copy.

Like The Bitter Roots (see below), The Smoke in Our Eyes mines gold out of the combination of a flashpoint in American history with a small-town Montana setting depicted with a penetrating eye for detail and authenticity.

Grady, born in Shelby, has brought the authenticity of a Montana boy and the talent of a veteran novelist to his tale of a ten-year-old boy, living in the fictional town of Vernon, Montana, who is blessed and cursed with unimpaired vision for the first time. Out of what he sees in his small town is weaved a tapestry of nostalgia, crime, vengeance, and the aching confusion of youth.  

We strongly recommend this novel. If you were there at the time, it rings true. If you weren't there, you will feel as if you have been by the time Mr. Grady is done leading you through this beautiful, exciting, layered novel.

Thankfully, a sequel to The Smoke in Our Eyes is forthcoming - American Sky will be available in bookstores everywhere, but especially at Isle of Books in Bozeman and Butte, on July 1 of this year!

The Bitter Roots

By Norman Macleod

"The Bitter Roots," initially released in 1941 and never republished until now, is rich with specific details of historical Montana life. Its narrative follows the fourteen-year-old Pauly, living in Missoula against the backdrop of America's entry into World War I, who witnesses a prank go wrong, resulting in another boy's death by drowning. It is a tough and violent world, colored by conflicts as seemingly insignificant as schoolyard pugilism or, on a larger scale, the violent clash of workers, agitators, and mining corporations that marked the period.

By the end of the novel the town of Missoula, though not on the front line and planted thousands of miles away therefrom, still finds itself ravaged by the Great War.

The rediscovery of this coming-of-age novel should be considered a major event in Montana letters. The Bitter Roots observes the local consequences of a world-altering global event through rich and well-written prose that captures Missoula and Butte (warts and all) as they were more than a hundred years ago. It is a novel that could not take place anywhere else.

Deadly Yellowstone: An Original Collection of Tantalizing Western Mystery Tales

Edited by Lisa McClendon

Yellowstone is a beautiful place, but, as we're reminded every year by the glut of tourist injuries, it can also be a very dangerous place. Buffalo stampede. Hot pots gurgle away. Bears rampage. And, even worse, murderous human beings lurk around every waterfall and pine tree in this very fun anthology of Yellowstone National Park-based mystery and crime yarns.

These diverse stories, each penned by an up-and-coming thriller writer, is well worth the attention of any armchair sleuth who likes their crime tales a little, well, wild. Supporting these nascent writers is part of the appeal of Deadly Yellowstone; who knows which of them will be the next C.J. Box?