The Plot Against Native America

"An informed, astute and often harrowing account of institutionalized assaults on Indigenous people.” —Kirkus Reviews

Indian boarding schools in the U.S. and First Nations residential schools in Canada were designed to batter Native cultures in a decades-long campaign to steal aboriginal land. These assimilation centers were operated by Christians, most notoriously the world’s wealthiest nun —Katharine Drexel—and by the federal governments of both nations.

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The Last Heir

“A dishy, encyclopedic romp through twentieth-century Montana history. I was amazed that a book containing so many disparate nuggets could hew to a narrative structure that enticed me to read it so quickly.” —John Clayton, author of Natural Rivals: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot, and the Creation of America’s Public Lands

The only thing the Herrins and the Burkes had in common was their Irish ancestry. Opposites in most ways, the families nevertheless personified two common threads in the history of the West. As the owner of an iconic Montana stock-raising operation Holly Herrin ruled with frontier violence and legal vehemance over an empire of cattle and sheep. George Burke was a real estate agent, a sheriff, a game warden, and a civil engineer in a family of professionals—newspaper editors, lawyers, and politicians, including a U.S. senator.

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First, a little Chee-Chee

For everyone who’s finally ready to stop making sense and start wasting time, here’s the ultimate instructional manual. Windsail on railroad tracks, play golf in corn fields and the spillways of dams, fly to Borneo to wreck the filming of Survivor, wander around in a Boy Scout uniform and a Food Suit loaded with pork and booze, fantasize in public about sex with Meg Ryan, alienate people and seek the company of dogs and horses.

Get a brand new hardbound copy signed by Bill Vaughn. The cost is $11.63—$6.99 plus $4.63 for USPS shipping. To order leave an email with your name and address at arrowgraphics@montana.com. You will be mailed the book wih an invoice.

Hawthorn

“Wow! This is quite extraordinary. . . . I was absolutely riveted from the first paragraph. Vaughn’s writing is often deeply literary, but at the same time, one can see the wheels of an innate environmentalist turning in intricate circles, sketching out a narrative that is by turns thoughtful, funny, informative, and even astonishing.” —Daniel Lewis, Huntington Library

One of humankind’s oldest companions, the hawthorn tree is bound up in the memories of every recorded age and the plot lines of cultures across the Northern Hemisphere.

Making Bones

“An absolute winner—I’m serious. Not ’country noir’, since it lacks the sense of existential hopelessness that I always associate with that greasy genre. The True West shines through in this one, with a truly admirable character at the center . . . highly recommended.” —Nate Briggs, The Kindle Book Review

“I loved this book. The plot had a bunch of twists (the last line made me laugh out loud at two in the morning), a great group of characters, often humorous dialog, but what really sealed it for me was the author’s descriptions of the setting. I’ve never been to the Breaks, but after reading this book, I feel like I’ve lived there.” —Bargain Book Reviews

Could investigating murders be a turn-on? Before she hooked up with a cop Izzy Sain hadn’t given the notion any thought. But she’s surprised at how much fun it turns out to be, and how chasing down a psychopath with a guy you like puts a brand new spin on the whole boy-girl thing. The story opens on two brothers working a secret dig to excavate a world-class fossil in Montana’s remote Missouri Breaks when unexpected company arrives.

Set the Prairie on Fire

Izzy Sain is an accidental cop. A photographer by training, and a cattle rancher by inheritance, she fell into law enforcement after a chance discovery. Then she proved to the world that she could bring a serial killer to justice. Now she’s been assigned to decipher the fate of her newest friend, a visionary named Duncan Thoreau. No easy task, since each Bureau of Land Management Ranger is responsible for policing a million acres.

Thoreau had imagined an uninhabited swath of Montana where vast herds of wild bison live the unfenced life they did two centuries ago, sharing a sea of grass with the other denizens of the prairie. The preserve would be larger than the Serengeti and even more compelling as a destination for international tourism. To that end his well-heeled organization has been buying failing cattle ranches and converting them to habitat for bison. Along the way he made enemies.

Gift With Purchase

Augie Zackheim likes to look on the bright side of life. Even though he hasn’t seen the sun in years, the lights in his home at the ruined Mall of America no longer work, the weather is always below freezing, and there’s a hush all over the world. As the planet marches in the direction of zero his pals can’t understand why he’s an optimist. But why not? He has a roof over his head, food on his plate, a gorgeous nurse he has to share with only one other guy, and a plan.