The High Missouri

Rivers West #11

by Win Blevins

Young would-be priest Dylan Campbell wants to bring God to the Indians, but his encounters with violence, lust, betrayal, and wilderness hardships west of the mighty Saskatchewan turn his efforts to simple survival. Original.

Genres: Westerns

448 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

Winfred Blevins

Reviews

[Dawn Dorsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frustrated in his life as a bank clerk, after a fight with his father, and stymied in his efforts to become a missionary priest to the Indians, young Dylan leaves Montréal in 1810 to try the fur trade among those Indians and the French and mixed-breed men in the Canadian prairies and Rockies. In his travels and trading, he comes face to face with hard work, hardship, starvation, love, loss, and most of all, his own soul. Dylan must figure out who he truly is, what he believes, and what he wants out of life before he can find inner peace and true happiness.

Along the way, he meets good men and scoundrels, a spiritual father and men he despises, a woman he idolizes and women who need his help, friends and foes. He learns to work beyond exhaustion, to differentiate between love and lust, to hunt and to fight, and to live as the Indians do, close to and as part of the natural world, which seems to blend naturally with the spiritual as he learns to recognize it.

The story provides wonderful descriptions of the land and people of the high prairies all the way to the Rocky Mountains before they were settled and "civilized" by modern life. It shows men and women, land and weather, good and bad, at their best and worst, in all their glory and ugliness.

[James L.Ferrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very slow starting and too much on lead characters love life. Once past this it was a really fine Blevins novel.

[Gail Richmond · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't waste your time unless you are into poorly written sex scenes and gratuitous violence. I'm not a religious fanatic, but even the idea that this protagonist considers himself material for the priesthood is ludicrous.

Yes, the West was a violent and wild place, but the Native Americans were not constantly seeking booze and sex. Stereotypes abound!!