Distinctly Montana Magazine

W W W. D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA NA . C O M 55 ALLEN MORRIS JONES A BLOOM OF BONES (pub. 2016, IG Publishing) Who Killed Pete Fahler? at is one of the many questions that haunts A Bloom of Bones, a genre-sub- verting literary mystery by award-winning author Allen Morris Jones. Following is an excerpt: Allen Morris Jones is the author of a novel, Last Year's River, A Quiet Place of Violence; and co-editor, with William Kittredge, of e Best of Montana's Short Fiction. Over the course of his career, he has published numerous articles, essays, short stories, and poems. As an editor, he has overseen the acquisition and development of more than one hundred titles, especially for his own business, Bangtail Press. Living in Bozeman, he is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Big Sky Journal. (www.allenmorrisjones.com) JAMES LEE BURKE James Lee Burke is the author of 35 previous books, including the series featur- ing Dave Robicheaux, the Holland Family, Hackberry Holland, and Billy Bob Holland. Winner of two Edgar awards for Best Crime Novel of the Year and named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Burke was born in Houston, TX and grew up on the Texas-Louisiana gulf coast. He and his wife live in Missoula. For a full bio about this amazing man, see his Facebook page or Web site, www.jamesleeburke.com. GWEN FLORIO Gwen Florio grew up near a wildlife refuge in Dela- ware, with a sweeping view across a mile of tide marsh to the waters of the Delaware Bay. After a course in jour- nalism, she embarked on a 30-year career that took her around this country and to more than a dozen countries, including conflict zones. Her journalism has won several awards and been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She now lives near Missoula adjacent to Mount Jumbo with her partner and an exuberant bird dog. She works a day job as city editor for the Missoulian newspaper. See www. gwenflorio.net. Her first novel, MONTANA, (e Permanent Press, 2013) in- troduces readers to Lola Wicks, a foreign correspondent. It won the inaugural Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction and a High Plains Book Award, both in the debut category. e next in the series featuring Lola Wicks are Dakota, Disgraced, and Reservations. FROM A BLOOM OF BONES I said, "at big bullet went right on through, didn't it?" It was too cold to snow but still it was snowing, a thin sheet of gauze twisting around the porch light. Buddy kicked through frozen marbles of blood, scattered at them, swept them aside with his boot. He knelt and rose, hoisting the body across one shoulder. Voice muffled by a wool scarf, he said, "Leaking?" "What?" "Is he leaking anywhere?" "I don't see it." "All right then." FROM THE JEALOUS KIND: A NOVEL ere was a time in my life when I woke every morning with fear and anxiety and did not know why. For me, fear was a given I factored into the events of the day, like a pebble that never leaves your shoe. In retrospect, an adult might call that a form of courage. If so, it wasn't much fun. My tale begins on a Saturday at the close of spring term of my junior year in 1952, when my father let me use his car to join my high school buds on Galves- ton Beach, fifty miles south of Houston. Actually, the car was not his; it was lent to him by his company for business use, with the understanding that only he would drive it. at he would lend it to me was an act of enormous trust. My friends and I had a fine day playing touch foot- ball on the sand, and as they built a bonfire toward evening, I decided to swim out to the third sandbar south of the island, the last place your feet could still touch bottom. It was not only deep and cold, it was also hammerhead country. FROM MONTANA A stick snapping beneath a hard-soled boot sounds like nothing else in the woods. Mary Alice Carr spent much of the night on the slope above her cabin wide- eyed and upright, back braced against a rolled sleeping bag, the minutes an inky ooze of boredom cut by fear, the hours flowing so slow and dreamlike that when the crack reverberated through the dark- ness she wondered if she'd conjured it from the thin mountain air. Beside her, the young dog raised his head. She'd heard right, then. From THE JEALOUS KIND: A NOVEL by James Lee Burke. Copyright © 2016 by James Lee Burke. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

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