In a book club and starting to plan your reads for next year? Check out our 2025 picks.

Book Summary and Reviews of A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe

A Good Man by Guy Vanderhaeghe

A Good Man

A Novel

by Guy Vanderhaeghe

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Jan 2012, 448 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

A dazzling follow up to The Englishman's Boy and The Last Crossing.

Wesley Case is a former soldier and son of a Canadian lumber baron who sets out into the untamed borderlands between Canada and the United States to escape a dark secret from his past. He settles in Montana where he hopes to buy a cattle ranch, and where he begins work as a liaison between the American and Canadian militaries in an effort to contain the Native Americans' unresolved anger in the wake of the Civil War. Amidst the brutal violence that erupts between the Sioux warriors and U.S. forces, Case's plan for a quiet ranch life is further compromised by an unexpected dilemma: he falls in love with the beautiful, outspoken, and recently widowed Ada Tarr. It's a budding romance that soon inflames the jealousy of Ada's quiet and deeply disturbed admirer, Michael Dunne. When the American government unleashes its final assault on the Indians, Dunne commences his own vicious plan for vengeance in one last feverish attempt to claim Ada as his own.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"This tension draws out a potentially tedious journey of paper-shuffle politics into a cohesive high-stakes drama." - Publishers Weekly

"Do the Mounties always get their man? Read this satisfying novel and find out." - Kirkus

"Vanderhaeghe is often compared to Larry McMurtry, and rightfully so, for his muscular prose readily conveys not only the nuanced love story but also the rugged beauty of the western landscape and the chaotic battle scenes that haunt his protagonists." - Booklist

"Remarkable... Deeply satisfying... There are, characteristically, bountiful and varied pleasures to be had in A Good Man... Vanderhaeghe's descriptions of the natural world [are] often as striking as Cormac McCarthy's... A Good Man caps a towering achievement worthy of celebration as loud as our humble voices can declare." - The Globe and Mail

"Vivid... A love story, a thriller, a Conradian meditation on courage and manhood, and a thoughtful examination of the origins of Canada's tangled relationship with its big southern neighbor... Vanderhaeghe has delivered an epic that matches its grand ambitions." - Winnipeg Free Press

"A rollicking story as large as the prairie is wide... The story unfolds with consistent charm and erudition." - Quill & Quire

This information about A Good Man was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Guy Vanderhaeghe Author Biography

Photo: Adrian Ewins

Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1951. He writes plays, short stories and novels. He has thrice won the Governor General's Award for Fiction, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Giller Prize and the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2003, Vanderhaeghe was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 2013, he received the Lieutenant Governor's Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, Saskatchewan's highest honour in arts. He currently lives in Saskatoon, and teaches creative writing as an evening class at St. Thomas Moore college at the University of Saskatchewan.

Name Pronunciation
Guy Vanderhaeghe: van-der-haig

Other books by Guy Vanderhaeghe at BookBrowse
  • The Last Crossing jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more historical fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    The House of Doors
    by Tan Twan Eng
    Every July, I take on the overly ambitious goal of reading all of the novels chosen as longlist ...
  • Book Jacket: The Puzzle Box
    The Puzzle Box
    by Danielle Trussoni
    During the tumultuous last days of the Tokugawa shogunate, a 17-year-old emperor known as Meiji ...
  • Book Jacket
    Something, Not Nothing
    by Sarah Leavitt
    In 2020, after a lifetime of struggling with increasingly ill health, Sarah Leavitt's partner, ...
  • Book Jacket
    A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens
    by Raul Palma
    Raul Palma's debut novel A Haunting in Hialeah Gardens introduces Hugo Contreras, who came to the ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

Courage - a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.