A Wind of Many Colors by John H. Brown
A KANSAS NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR - 2009 NOMINEE
Notes from the Author: The Story
Third-generation American, John Purdy, son of a prosperous Kentucky-Irish mercantile family, marries beautiful 17-year old Mattie Grasher. She, too, is a third-generation American, the only child of a successful Pennsylvania-German importer. John takes his bride home to western Kentucky where they prosper.
Over the next nine years, Mattie presents John with four sons and matures into a statuesque 26-year-old whose beauty becomes a curse. A man of low regard determines to have an intimate taste of such beauty and his acts trigger a chain of profound events. Further incidents compel others to take issue and, as the story unfolds, an unconscionable tragedy strikes the Purdys.
After determining the culprit's identity, John forsakes the business world to lead an 1860s search team drawn from the broad ethnic mix of locals he has befriended. His team includes a runaway slave, an Indian of the old warrior traditions, and a mystery man of impressive man-hunting skills who has masqueraded as the local school teacher.
This spirited adventure steams down the Mississippi for a glimpse of southern living at its best. And worst. Then northward to St. Louis and up the Missouri to the wildest of frontier towns where a remarkable group of women are determined to keep their thin veneer of civilization in place. The story gallops out to the mines on the Rockies eastern slopes, then storms into the Ozark hills where the team closes on its prey in a compelling conclusion.
Revisit the bloodlines your ancestors bequeathed. Walk tall. If your American bloodlines originated East of the Rockies , be they red, black. or any of the various shades of white, A Wind of Many Colors is a chapter in your heritage scrapbook.
Take a look at John's next book.
