Reviews

“John F. Corrigan’s historical mystery, The Storytellers, is a gripping page-turner—one that’s erudite, elegantly written, and fun to read.

Set in the spring of 1877, The Storytellers follows an expedition to the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, where Custer led a few hundred men into an encampment of thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne. Custer knew the odds and still proceeded. None of the soldiers survived. Why did Custer do it?

Corrigan’s answer is told through his fictitious New York private investigator, DelCol. He’s hired by the company that sold life insurance policies to Custer and some of his men, to investigate what happened that day and why.

Smart and witty, DelCol also has an outstanding sense of smell that allows him to reconstruct a person’s movements, motives, and profession from rich olfactory information. Hiding his real mission, he joins an army-led expedition returning to the Little Bighorn battlefield months after the battle to properly bury the men who died. In the process, he gathers the stories of anyone who will talk to him, including colorful characters from true history, such as Sitting Bull, who invites DelCol to hear the Sioux side of the battle.

The closer to the truth DelCol draws, the more that less savory forces hound him, some paranormal and some frighteningly incarnate, especially one determined assassin.

The story is propelled with visceral details, surprising plot twists, likeable characters, and taut pacing. Corrigan’s dense historical details—and footnotes—also enhance the tale. There are just two quibbles: When DelCol revisits events with new witnesses, repeated historical details

slow the story. And for all the early exposition about DelCol’s epic sense of smell, after the first 100 pages it practically disappears until much later in the story.

Overall, though, Corrigan delivers a fast-paced mystery that vividly explores a pivotal event in American history. Lovers of westerns, mysteries, detective novels, and American history will greatly enjoy The Storytellers.”

“A fantastical reimagining of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s bloody defeat at Little Bighorn, told from the perspective of an investigating detective.
Capt. Thomas Weir—one of the survivors of the massacre at Little Bighorn over which Custer presided—dies suddenly in New York and without an obvious explanation, a hale man in his 30s. His death is ruled to have been caused by “congestion of the brain,” but the private detective summoned to inspect the scene of his demise, Mr. DelCol, notices the look of unalloyed terror on his face. DelCol is hired by the New York Life Insurance Company to investigate the matter further, more particularly what precisely happened at Little Bighorn; many of the officers who died were bearers of insurance policies, and apparently there is reason to believe that “something happened out there—something beyond the ordinary, beyond the official tale,” a suggestion chillingly described by author Corrigan (Aidan, 2005, etc.). DelCol contacts his uncle—Lt. Col. Paris DelCol—who helps him join an Army detail sent to recover the bodies of the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry who perished that fateful day, an opportunity to interview survivors. The deeper DelCol digs, the more certain he becomes that the prevailing wisdom about Custer’s debacle is suspicious. As one officer incredulously puts it: “Hell, how does an entire regiment—an entire crack regiment; hell, the crack regiment—go in against a band of savages and get annihilated?” DelCol also begins to suspect that whatever did happen that day might require an explanation that defies the possibilities of both science and ordinary experience and that his inquires very well might endanger his life. Blending Custer and others with fictional characters like DelCol, the author’s tale is not a conventional rehashing of a historical event well covered by historians and novelists alike; in fact, it’s a rare literary treat, the refreshingly imaginative refashioning of a well-known story so original it becomes entirely renewed. Also, Corrigan is impressively skillful at blurring the line between the plausible and supernatural. This is a riveting book, dramatically powerful and historically astute.
A brilliant literary reworking of a familiar historical story.”

“Featuring an unrelenting search for more knowledge, regardless of the cost, The Storytellers is a vibrant, ghostly historical novel.
In 1877, a year after the Battle of Little Bighorn, a team of soldiers and assistants returned to the scene. John F. Corrigan’s haunting, myth-defying historical novel, The Storytellers, concerns this event.
DelCol, the son of one of Custer’s top officers during the Civil War, wants to write a book about the Little Bighorn battle. He joins the squadron headed there to bring bodies back to their families. On the way, he meets a host of colorful characters. What Native Americans, rich men, heroes, outlaws, and fearless women tell him about the battle does not fit with what he knows about it, though. The more information he receives, the more he senses that someone, or something, hopes to prevent him from telling the true story.
Concerned both with the battle itself and DelCol’s efforts to tell its story, the novel is harrowing through and through. Within it, the Sioux are still on the prowl, and threats against DelCol’s fact-finding mission emerge. Dread surrounds the battlefield, which some say is haunted, though they don’t want to say much more for fear of unleashing the spirits roaming the site.
Both a mystery and a thrilling Western, the novel reads like a movie script. Action moves it, as do conversations between distinctive characters. DelCol, from the North, speaks in a mannered way, while Herendeen, a scout and DelCol’s best friend on the trip, speaks with a twang. Among the Sioux, who invite DelCol to parlay with them, graphic metaphors are employed.
DelCol is the novel’s unsung hero, notable because of his careful listening. He pieces together the clues surrounding Little Bighorn using his dreams and detective skills. Other characters develop most as they tell DelCol their stories, establishing friendships and traveling together, and romance sparks between Herendeen and Abby, a Deadwood store proprietress and Little Bighorn widow. Custer’s reputation is fleshed out through the cast’s stories about his gambling and “bad omens” leading up to the battle. Multiple perspectives not only solidify the order of events, but shed new light on why things happened the way that they did.
Swift and steady, each of the novel’s chapters presents a fresh adventure, though the conclusion is a long time coming. False endings arise before the final, surprise conclusion. Drawings and paintings from the time period are included to enhance the setting, and an old-fashioned font used for the chapter headings accomplishes this, too. Extensive footnotes help to put the book’s events into broader context.
Featuring an unrelenting search for more knowledge, regardless of the cost, The Storytellers is a vibrant, ghostly historical novel. ”