Two Medicine River

I picked up a copy of this book, primarily because I had read a few of Wheeler's other novels, and that I had just visited Glacier Park and was curious to know more about the Two Medicine River. Overall, this book was entertaining, and was on par with Wheeler's other novels. This book is billed as historical fiction, not a western. Several of the side characters I recognized, such as the Jesuit DeSmet. After finishing the novel, I did a bit of research online, and sure enough, several of the side characters were real. The title of the book, The Two Medicine River, seemed a bit arbitrary to me (the Marias and Missouri Rivers are also featured heavily). The story focuses on the Blackfeet indians (the Piegans in particular) and the white traders and settlers. My only real complaint, and it's a minor one, is the pacing of the story; it begins as a continuous narrative, but then starts to skip ahead. Recommended. The back cover reads: "Down the eastern slopes of the Rockies, out upon the Great Plains, and into the heart of Blackfeet country flows the Two Medicine River. To this wild and beautiful land come a pair of young wanderers, half-breeds born of two worlds... but belonging to neither. Marie Therese de Paris - driven by the ancestral fires in her spirit - sets out on a vision quest, hoping to save the Blackfeet from their cruel fate. Peter Kipp, bold and ambitious, chooses to follow his father into the American Fur Company, determined to prove himself in the white man's world. Bound by love, torn by their loyalties, Peter and Marie Therese share a single destiny... a destiny about to unfold on the banks of the Two Medicine River."