Bruce Holbert, author of 'Lonesome Animals'

The writing flows and the characters are well-wrought. Reminiscent of True Grit, a grizzled, old-school lawman is called out of retirement to track down a killer who is carving dead Indians into works of art.

If you have the stomach for graphic descriptions of artfully murdered human corpses and the violent actions of the protagonist, Russell Strawl, Lonesome Animals offers perspective on the Myth of the West – a myth as worn and out-dated as Strawl.

The publisher's description of the book includes this: "Lonesome Animals is a western novel reinvented, a detective story inverted for the west. It contemplates the nature of story and heroism in the face of a collapsing ethos – not only of Native American culture, but also of the first wave of white men who, through the battle against the geography and its indigenous people, guaranteed their own destruction. But it is also about one man’s urgent, elegiac search for justice amidst the craven acts committed on the edges of civilization."

Find out more Bruce Holbert and his novel. And listen to the program on the radio or online.

• Thursday, August 23 at 7:30 p.m. on Montana Public Radio
• Thursday, August 23 at 6:30 p.m. on Yellowstone Public Radio
• Online, anytime at MTPR.org
• Via the MTPR podcast