Montana Blues - Paperback

by Ray Ring (Author)

Montana Blues is an unusual mystery-thriller novel -- the story of a wrongly-convicted Black man and a spirited White woman who face racial violence on a spectacular landscape.

Dawson Koloko grew up playing football in a rough neighborhood of Long Beach, California. It helped him cope with a family tragedy and he's tough enough to be recruited for the Montana State University team. He has culture shock landing in a place that's very White and still wild. When he dates a White Montana cheerleader, Nikki Fontaine, she winds up murdered and a biased justice system blames him for the crime.

Rose Fontaine, Nikki's identical twin sister, testifies against Dawson in the trial and helps send him to prison. She grew up in Montana oilfields and, as she's also wounded emotionally by the murder, she finds some relief making her living outdoors on horseback.

When new evidence frees Dawson from prison, he and Rose struggle to overcome their differences, trying to team up to hunt the real murderer. They have to deal with White supremacists, the turmoil of shifting relationships, horse rides and bison roundups in stormy weather and an epic struggle on an almost-frozen lake. One of them is struck blind, at least temporarily, as their hunt continues. Feels like everybody is on thin ice ...