Devil's Backbone (The Legend of See Bird)

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Southern California Book Festival Honorable Mention-Best Fiction

Devil's Backbone Blends Historical Fact into Realistic Fiction

Author Karl Stewart spins another good yarn in his latest book, Devil's Backbone, the second novel in Stewart's Legend of See Bird series.

In real life, Stewart's grandfather was a successful rodeo cowboy known as "Red" Carpenter. Red was a Native American, a Choctaw Indian whose real name was "See Bird."

In the first novel of the series, The Last Long Drive, Stewart introduces See Bird--the Choctaw cowboy who rode into an adventure on the last long cattle drive before the railroads made such trail drives unnecessary.

In this new novel, See Bird is a friend of "Devil Anse" Hatfield who draws See Bird into the infamous feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Stewart presents believable people, set against the backdrop of actual history and uses historical fact to create realistic drama.

The story is set in West Virginia, where the author was raised, so his expressive language, authentic mountain dialect and convincing sense of place come from the experience of someone who has actually lived there.

John M. Silah, President of the Fond du Lac Area Writers, movie critic and playwright

Karl Stewart was raised in the hills and forests of West Virginia. Devil's Backbone is a sequel to Stewart's first novel, The Legend of See Bird: The Last Long Drive. Inspired by the mystery of an old man he loved, Stewart now writes stories of the Old West centered on that legend his great-grandfather, from his home high on a ridge in rural Wisconsin.