The Nightbirds by Thomas Maltman

The Nightbirds by Thomas Maltman
Booklist Review: In 1862, led by Chief Little Crow and incited by the government’s failure to provide their annuity, the Dakota Sioux staged an uprising in Minnesota, slaughtering hundreds of settlers. As a result, 38 Dakota men were hanged, the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Maltman’s promising first novel bounces between the years leading up to this atrocity-laden conflict and 1876, when the James-Younger gang would stir up its own brand of bloody mayhem in Minnesota. Following the struggles of the Senger family, Maltman keeps the telling personal and local, tacked to the Sengers farm and the Dakota tribe situated a stones throw across the river.