Deep Creek

by Dana Hand

Idaho Territory, June 1887. A small-town judge takes his young daughter fishing, and she catches a man. Another body surfaces, then another. The final over 30 Chinese gold miners brutally murdered. Their San Francisco employer hires Idaho lawman Joe Vincent to solve the case. Soon he journeys up the wild Snake River with Lee Loi, an ambitious young company investigator, and Grace Sundown, a métis mountain guide with too many secrets. As they track the killers across the Pacific Northwest, through haunted canyons and city streets, each must put aside lies and old grievances to survive a quest that will change them forever. Deep Creek is a historical thriller inspired by actual events and the 1887 massacre of Chinese miners in remote and beautiful Hells Canyon, the middle-aged judge who went after their slayers, and the sham race-murder trial that followed. This American tragedy was long suppressed and the victims nearly forgotten; Deep Creek teams history and imagination to illuminate how and why, in a seamless, fast-moving tale of courage and redemption, loss and love. A dazzling new novel for fans of Leif Enger, Lisa See, and Ivan Doig.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Mystery, Westerns, Crime, Book Club, Historical

308 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Randy Walzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to pay attention all the way through, and be willing to sink into a convincingly recreated West at the very end of frontier days, and also (frankly) be fairly smart to follow a challenging plot and characters that reveal their stories and secrets bit by bit. A jigsaw puzzle of a book, like all good investigations. Highly recommended, but not a conventional or traditional story. Writing is very fine throughout, concise yet freighted with meaning and feeling. I also learned a lot about places and cultures I thought I knew, and didn't. Joe, Grace and Lee Loi are good company throughout.

[Barbara Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is based on a true crime story of the Old West. In 1887 35-40 Chinese miners were massacred at Deep Creek in Hell's Canyon, Oregon along the Snake River. Chinese were generally thought of as something less than human at the time, and Indians hardly more worthy of consideration. Despite this attitude, Joe Vincent, a former judge of Lewiston in Idaho Territory was hired by the Sam Yup company representative, Lee Loi, to investigate the murder of its employees. Vincent in turn hired half French, half Nez Perce Grace Sundown to be their guide. Surprises and danger lurk around every bend of the Snake but the three persevere. A side story tells of corruption and prejudice among townspeople.

Dana Hand is the pen name of Anne Matthews and Will Howarth, Princeton professors, who keep the reader guessing and who made the scenes very real in the reader's imagination. Characters are excellently depicted and fascinating. I recommend this novel for anyone who loves American history, true crime, or western novels. It's a wonderful book.

[Andybaines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually like pre-20th-century historical fiction but I saw the rave review in the Washington Post and decided to try this. I finished it a week ago and am still thinking about it. It's like I lived it. And the fact that it's a dramatization of a real incident makes the novel all the more compelling, IMHO. The writing is very clear (not self-consciously fancy), the present-day parallels are all too strong, and I find I miss the core characters, Joe, Henry and Lee Loi especially. Dana Hand's villains are extremely alarming, the respectable ones almost more than the outlaws. And rather than preach about racial injustice, the writers make you feel it in your gut; when Grace Sundown finally gets mad enough to fight back, I frankly cheered.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the depictions of the murders are gruesome, this is a beautiful read. The main characters (especially Joe) are well-drawn and the story unfolds at a nice pace. The back stories are revealed slowly, adding just a little bit of a thread to the overall weave of the plot, which I liked. The novel also makes readers think about the treatment of those who are different. Hostility against immigrants is nothing new; a sad commentary on how things have not really changed.

[Lin Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely want to be Grace Sundown when I grow up. Verdict: A keeper. When's the movie?

[Suzanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this historical novel would be a good choice for my book club because we live near where the event - the Chinese massacre of 1887 - took place. Our group has enjoyed several historical fiction titles and this book got great reviews.

So much for trusting the reviews. No one in the group (myself included) liked the book. A few members didn't even bother to finish it. The only positive thing about this choice was that it did increase the awareness of the actual event.

Reading the book was an exercise in frustration. I frequently had to reread passages because it was unclear which character was speaking. Sometimes I went back one or more chapters, wondering if I missed some crucial plot point - only to find it several chapters later. During our group discussion members brought up at least three specific passages and asked the group for clarification.

Puzzled by the high ratings this book has received, I searched out additional reviews. Nearly all gave it high marks - making me wonder if we had read the same book. I finally found one reviewer, Ellen Urbani from the Oregonian who noted the book's limitations.

Urbani wrote: Kirkus Reviews notes that "the story has more twists and eddies than the Snake," a truth as duel-edged as they come. For while the connections between characters' motives -- and, in fact, characters themselves -- are intricately interwoven and oftentimes fascinating, the anchor points for those threads are stretched over such long expanses as to render the connections tenuous at best, incomprehensible at worst.

This is an interesting subject, but the novel is poorly executed. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen a non fiction account.

[Carolyn Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read, but an easy read would be impossible considering the subject matter. On one hand you have the horrible fate of the Chinese miners, and on the other hand you've got totally apathy about their fate from 99% of the characters in the book. Only the four main characters and a handful of peripheral characters care at all, and they are doomed to be disappointed in the outcome. That being said, the author did a great job of keeping the story engaging, and not burning out the reader. It also helps that the book is in parts - part one alternates between the miners and the preliminary investigation of the massacre site, part two they are back with evidence and figure out whodunit, part three they pursue a trial. At various points the investigators are pursued by the bad guys, and there is also some relationshipy stuff that happens along the way. Which rounds out the book well and I don't mean to demean it, but the relationships are not nearly as interesting as the murder investigation.

[Ellen Schappe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crime, justice, family, long-lost love: this book has all the elements I like. "Deep Creek" is a fast-moving thriller about a terrible genocidal crime in 1887 Idaho. But it ranks with any historical novel I have read. The villains, male and female, are genuinely scary. The trio of investigators, like their families and friends, are ordinary, likable, fallible people forced into heroism. There's a touch of the supernatural, too, just enough for eeriness, and in the end we witness justice done, though in an unexpected way. Many current novels can feel like duty reads. This did not. I just wanted to know what happened to them all. The authors--Dana Hand is a two-person pen name-- clearly did a ton of research, but it's woven in gently, like the character back stories. Soon you are deep in the late 19th century, it all feels completely convincing, and you hate to leave.

[Jerry Fields · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historically very accurate (unfortunately.) Characters all believable, action and plot cleanly constructed and exciting. The sad part is that I can imagine this crime happening in our time too, given the current national mood: American attitudes toward immigrants and strangers have not evolved much since 1887, and this intelligent novel throws light on why this might be.

[Dunrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plot carried me through this book quickly, and now that I'm done I have to set aside time to read it through again. The characters reveal themselves and their relationships gradually, so I'm looking forward to that second read.

[Susannah Sibley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best historical novel I've read in a long time; great feel for place and time, characters memorable, plot convincing, literary style deceptively accessible but extremely carefully crafted. A book you need to read twice to catch all the subtleties and echoes.

[Polly Kasper · Rating 5 out of 5]

The publisher did not label this book well. It is not really a mystery, or a thriller, or a Western. This is literary fiction of a very high order. Not an easy read, but a rewarding one, ambitious and complex.

[Mark Pedersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely uncool confession: I feel I am a better person for having read this book.
I also enjoyed the author website: http://www.dana-hand.com/

[Corahalsted · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent historical fiction; I recommend. Exciting, humane and you learn a lot. Nicely done love stories, very scary villains, twisty plot.

[Mona Hendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful novel: lean swift writing, some sad US history made vividly real, great villains, and a non-sappy love story about late-life redemption. Co-written, and very well. More, please, soon--

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

It's been a couple months since I read this, I'm late at entering it into this journal. So my memory has slipped a bit.

This is the story, based on historical fact, set in the 1880s, of a white man in a small Oregon town who does his best to investigate and prosecute the slaughter of a company of Chinese miners working out on a remote creek.

The white man is police judge Joe Vincent who's as adept as Sherlock Holmes at inhabiting a disguise. He goes undercover to help deduce who/how did the massacre.

One thing that I loved about this novel is its emotional realism. Joe is a middle-aged guy, who could be said to have had an unsuccessful career. He married badly, we learn, for money, into a loveless relationship. The woman he did love -- and educated Indian -- disappeared after they had found themselves on opposite sides in a skirmish in the Indian wars.

Also, Joe's assignment to solve the murders puts him flat against the crushing social discrimination against the Chinese.


The missing love interest surfaces early on, in the form of the Indian guide who shows up to lead him into the back country where the crimes occurred, even tho Joe had summoned the female's brother, not her.

Joe does solve the mystery, does prosecute it, and wins no convictions.

But there is a measure of justice at the end. One of the acquitted suspects does admit on his deathbed (a young death due to disease), and word trickles back to Joe.

More importantly, he rescues himself from his failed (or should i say, never gotten-off-the-ground) marriage and is able to make a life with his educated Indian woman. A

n unconventional life, though, as it appears she doesn't want to marry and will spend a good amount of her time off on a lecture circuit.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main focus of this book is about a gruesome massacre of 30 Chinese miners along the Deep Creek. The main character is a man with many hats, who becomes the primary investigator to find out who could have done this. The book basically opens with him and his daughter fishing and what she catches is a dead body. This book is not for the weak.

There are many twists in the puzzle, interconnections and society, politics, and is this how the west was developed? Sadly, yes. The sentiment against the Chinese was beyond how even blacks were treated, although it may be a tie with how the Natives were treated. It is disgusting.

The saddest part about this book is how much it relied on true facts of what did happen. The torture, mutilation and killing of these Chinese men did in fact happen. The area has been now renamed as Chinese Massacre Creek.

You can read about the true accounts, as much as can be known, in an article that was published in 2006 by the Oregon Historical Quarterly, “‘A Most Daring Outrage’: Murders at Chinese Massacre Cove, 1887.” by Gregory Nokes. The book follows this well researched article quite closely, albeit with necessary changes for dramatization, that I suspect that Hand read this and said, this is my next book! Just a supposition on my part, although Hand did leave a note at the end of the book about the factual aspects.


Despite the dark aspects of the book, I did enjoy the style, the writing. It was masterfully written as fully immersed in the location and time frame.

[Paulette Illmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great work of historical fiction, following an accurate timeline, with well-written characters, and a storyline that held me from the first page to the last.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

In so many books about the American West, Asian immigrants or Native Americans are sidebars, but this novel stands out because it is based on historical events by a duo of nonfiction writers, telling the story of Chinese migrants and the forced removal of indigenous groups in Gold Country in multicultural Western realism.

[David Abrams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dana Hand’s debut novel Deep Creek opens with an unforgettable scene. In 1887, a small-town judge and his daughter go fishing in the Snake River in Idaho Territory. The girl throws in a line and catches a man. Soon, more bodies are bobbing in the flood-swollen river and the judge, Joe Vincent, has a mass-murder mystery on his hands.

The corpses—shot, hacked, disemboweled, dismembered—are Chinese miners who have traveled deep into Hells Canyon where they met their fate at the titular Deep Creek. Even though the body count rises to forty, law enforcement authorities and politicians in Lewiston (home to “fifteen hundred whites and five hundred Celestials”) are slow to launch an investigation.

Judge Vincent is hired by the miners’ employer, the Sam Yup Company of San Francisco, and soon he’s tracking the suspected killers up the Snake. Vincent has had just about every job in Western law enforcement and politics there is: marshal, probate judge, justice of the peace, federal commissioner and territorial representative. Now, he turns into a frontier Sherlock Holmes—even disguising himself and going undercover to infiltrate a horse-rustling gang. He’s joined in his investigation by Grace Sundown, a Metis (French-Indian) tracker; and Lee Loi, the company agent from Sam Yup sent to Idaho to ensure the untidy matter of the dead miners is handled quickly and quietly.

It’s a perilous time to be a dedicated lawman (or a minority like Grace Sundown and Lee Loi in the lily-white West). As one character observes, “No one who went upriver to Deep Creek came back the same.”

The trio investigating the dark and dangerous curves of the Snake certainly returns from the mission damaged, both physically and spiritually. The land at the edge of civilization is a frightening one and Hand spares none of the gruesome details of the murders in the flashbacks woven throughout the plot which is based on actual events in 1887.

Deep Creek becomes more complex as it progresses. We soon learn that Grace is Vincent’s former lover and that his current wife is a femme fatale who has discarded him in the wake of her money-grubbing ambition. His investigation is also hampered by what Hand describes as “the Idaho-Oregon jurisdictional tangle, the wilderness conditions on the upper Snake, the undoubted destruction of evidence by the later May flood, and Lewiston’s limited appetite for solving an all-Chinese crime. Bury and move on, that was the local sentiment.”

Vincent defies the prejudices of the Old West as he pursues the murderers. Like a morally-upright Gary Cooper riding the range, he’s a noble (if flawed) hero sticking to his guns.

This is the first novel from Hand—the pen name of Will Howarth and Anne Matthews, authors of eighteen non-fiction books on American history and literature—and it shows the first-time novelist’s strain of trying too hard to be too many things for too many readers.

At times, the novel is permeated by the spare, chilly dread of Robert Altman’s film McCabe and Mrs. Miller; in other stretches, Deep Creek carries the burden of its research, moving at a deliberate pace which is alternately plodding (a la James Michener) and richly evocative (a la E. L. Doctorow).

Surprisingly, the novel becomes more exciting and interesting after Hand has dispensed with the murder investigation and trial. The book’s major characters leave the courtroom and go their separate ways—some to San Francisco; some to Portland, Oregon; and some back to the blood-darkened valleys of western Idaho. This is when Hand reveals the true heart of the novel: Deep Creek is less of a murder mystery than it is a pointed condemnation of prejudice in the frontier West.

As awful as it is to see the blood-soaked corpses floating down the current of the Snake River, even worse is the apparent disregard for equal justice in Hells Canyon. This is Deep Creek’s powerful message: not only was the Old West wild and wooly, it was criminally unfair in its treatment of women and minorities. Only in the novel’s final, haunting scene does Hand bring some closure to the case—and even then it’s up to the land itself to exact vengeance for the murders.

(Originally published at New West)

[Jan C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A while back I either heard about this book or the non-fiction book, Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon by R. Gregory Nokes, which I will probably now pick up. At any rate, they are both about a massacre of 30-40 Chinese miners in the late 1880s.

There are compelling characters - Judge Joe Vincent, Grace Sundown, Nell. I guess you would call Libby and Vollmer compelling also but not in a very complimentary way.

This was the first I'd ever heard of "ether parties". Ether worked as a legal substitute for alcohol as opposed to what we would call bootleg liquor or moonshine. And apparently (mainly) women would get together to guzzle ether. I'd only heard of ether as used as anesthesia.

Joe and his daughter Nell go fishing one day and catch a man. He subsequently feels compelled to investigate.

This is all based on a true event and the authors are historical writers and combined under a pen name for this outing. Catch the website - http://www.dana-hand.com/. Very interesting Afterword written by the authors reminding us that this was historical fiction, but most of the characters were real.

Not sure why this book took me so long to read. It was always quite readable whenever I picked it up. Glad I finally finished it.

[Iowa City Public Library]

Deep Creek is a historical novel that recounts the story of an 1887 massacre of more than 30 Chinese gold miners in a remote area of Idaho along the Snake River. The story begins when a small town judge and former sheriff, Joe Vincent, takes his ten year old daughter, Nell, fishing and Nell ends up snagging a body…and then another one, and another one. The Chinese miners working for the Sam Yup Company have been brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated. Vincent ends up working with a representative of the mining company, Lee Loi, and metis mountain guide Grace Sundown to track the killers and bring them to justice. The characters are compelling, the story is intriguing, but the history is what really caught me up in this book. Dana Hand is a pen name for Will Howarth and Anne Matthews who have collaborated on eighteen books of nonfiction, many of them on American history. They know their stuff. The Wild West is portrayed in all it’s glory and excitement, but the dark side of land deals, exploitation, and casual, often violent, discrimination against Chinese immigrants and American Indians is the back story. This is a Mystery, a Western and a character study — not an easy read, but a rewarding one. --Susan

From ICPL Staff Picks Blog

[Roberta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had trouble rating this one. In the end I enjoyed it more than I did for most of the reading of it. It was an interesting story, based on facts (a big plus for me) with characters whose story I wanted to learn. It concerns the massacre of 30+ Chinese miners in the Idaho Territory in the late 1880's and of Joe Vincent's determination to find out what happened and bring the perpetrators to justice. The problem I had with the book is that I had trouble following much of the story. It moved back and forth between the current time (1887) and ten years earlier and while the chapter headings gave the dates, still at times I think events in the 1887 part referred to events in the 1877 part. At any rate, I got confused. I also had trouble following the story line about the financial shenanigans involved and exactly why the Chinese miners were targeted. I got the jist enough to plow on and by the end was feeling more than I understand sufficiently to enjoy the characters and how things were "resolved." Dana Hand is a pseudonym for two nonfiction history writers, and perhaps have two authors contributed to the -- to may mind anyway -- confusing aspects of the story telling. In the end I enjoyed it enough to be glad I stayed the course.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating account that's equally effective as mystery, Western history and character study (Las Vegas Review-Journal), this gripping, complex novel captivated the critics with its moving story, engaging characters, and stark, evocative writing. Building a novel around actual events can be tricky, but these first-time novelists carry it off with aplomb, seamlessly interweaving fact and fiction to fill in the historical gaps. Howarth and Matthews paint a vivid, visceral portrait of the Old West, bringing to life America's enduring struggles with diversity and racial tension. The Oregonian alone voiced complaints, including an objection to liberties taken with real-life characters. Nonetheless, most critics agreed that "fans of Northwest history, Westerns and mysteries will find much to like in this tale" (Seattle Times). This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Daven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I refused to give up on this one, and I grit my teeth to the end. Tough reading, as the plot and the characters seem to keep doubling-back on themselves. I admit to being somewhat of a fragmented reader, and am often reading 3 or 4 books at a time. But even given these self-induced complications, I had a heck of a time retaining who was who, with different names often used for characters depending on who was referring to them, and a string of location changes.

I admire the depth and historical detail, and the sense of place is an admirable accomplishmenbt by these authors. But clarity in storyline has to be foremost, and sorry, I couldn't hold on very easily.

I finished, though, and although I found the ending unsatisfying, I valued the main characters and their simultaneous sense of loss and gain.

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Susan Craig recommended this novel, based on a real historical event. In 1886, some 30 Chinese immigrants were murdered along the Snake River in northwest Idaho Territory, just across the river from Oregon. In the novel a 60-something prominent white citizen of Lewiston, Idaho, teams up with a young, Yale-educated Chinese representative of the company for whom the victims worked and a metis guide to try to gather enough evidence to convict the murderers. (It’s not really a mystery because we know early on who the culprits are.) Each investigator has good reasons—quite apart from racial bias—to be suspicious of, even to hate, the others, but in the course of the trials that come as a part of their investigation, they form a tight bond. It’s a pretty good yarn, with richly drawn characters, and it’s more sophisticated than one might expect from this sort of thing.

[Cassie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. I probably would have really liked it had I not been so busy with other things. This book has a complicated story line full of political intrigue, historical facts and lots of characters. It's the kind of book where you have to keep at it and not stop or else you find yourself confused. I found myself confused simply because I couldn't devote the time to uninterrupted reading. This book takes place in the late 1800s in the Hell's Canyon area of Idaho and Oregon. I took a family trip to this area last summer so the images described in the book were extremely vivid and I loved that aspect of it.

[April Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful novel. The three worlds are very clear and convincing (white, Native American, Chinese) and I love the deep backstory provided for the main characters, especially the inimitable Grace Sundown. I notice that some reviewers object to the prose style, and the only reason I can imagine is that it is too subtle, especially for people who gobble genre fiction. The book is beautifully written, in the manner of Cather and Hemingway, with deceptively limpid prose covering a great deal of feeling. I would love to see this as a TV miniseries.

[Richard Jacoby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story, but I struggled with the way back story was revealed through dialogue. Characters would refer to a previous important event, pick up on and respond to something subtle said by the other character, and the audience was supposed to infer what had happened previously. I found myself re-reading these dialogues to figure out what had been revealed. I am sure that readers who do better with such subtleties did better than I did. The historic story, however, was fascinating, and this book was worth the read.

[Minetta S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific. A highly intelligent, very well-written novel of social conscience, without being the least preachy or obnoxious--and the most amazing aspect, to my mind, is that is is perfectly in period. I am a U.S. historian, the late 19th century is my particular area, and I can spot no errors of attitude or fact in Dana Hand's re-imagining of a terrible true event in American history. I think this novel is every bit as good as "Wolf Hall," my highest compliment.