Rating: 
Summary: The writing alone rates
Review: a top score. The author writes a 19th century novel the way it might have been written 150 years ago. In terms of scope, I think this novel closely resembles A.B. Guthrie's, The Big Sky, more than anything else. It takes time to tackle these Post Modern pieces and it takes a while to care about anyone in here but gradually the reader begins to understand the relationships. A lot of stuff goes unsaid which I think speaks well for any writer. We know that Aloysius is a devoted friend to Custis and we figure it out without being clubbed with it. The relationship between Jerry Potts and Custis also figures in this vein. I would like to have read more of Potts' story. My only criticism and it is mild is that Charles narrates a bit too long.
If you want to read something ultimately satisfying in non traditional ways, this might be your ticket.
Rating:
Summary: A rousing epic of the Old West
Review: At the center of this epic, multi-voiced novel of the American and Canadian West is a lost Englishman and the motley crew that sets out across the prairie to find him. Acclaimed Canadian writer Vanderhaeghe uses this fairly ordinary plot device to tell a rousing, riveting tale of love, lawlessness and the vast cultural gaps that bind and divide.
Simon Gaunt is the missing young man. Favorite son of a self-made British industrialist, Simon disappeared during an 1870 mission to bring Christ to the Indians. The reader knows Simon got lost in a blizzard and was discovered - and maybe rescued - by an Indian "holy being." Simon's family knows only that the leader of the missionary expedition has been found dead, near Fort Benton, on the Montana frontier.
Henry Gaunt sends his two remaining sons, Addington, the militaristic one, and Charles, the artist, to America to find Simon. The cultural gulf between the Brits and their former colonials is instantaneous, wide and deep.
"Until Addington attempted to requisition this room for his own use, I was disgusted by the state of it, the very room which the proprietor boasts is the finest the Overland Hotel has to offer," reflects Charles, Simon's fraternal twin.
Haunted by memories of his gentle, otherworldly brother, Charles organizes the expedition, but waits impatiently on his older brother's leadership. Addington, loaded for bear (literally), has acquired a shady biographer in the tradition of all Western adventurers, and seems to look on the expedition as a rustic "Grand Tour," complete with a wagonload of claret and expensive brandy. Charles, chafing to leave, finds them a guide - Jerry Potts, a half-Indian, half-white woodsman, torn by his heart's allegiance to the two warring cultures he embodies.
But on the eve of their departure a young girl is murdered, and as an indirect consequence, the party grows by three. The girl's sister, Kate Stoveall, left in Fort Benton while her no-account husband sells whiskey to the Indians, joins the party as a cook, seeking the thugs who murdered her sister. Custis Shaw, Civil War veteran, loner and Bible-reading enigma, rides out after Kate, the woman he loves. And saloonkeeper Aloysius Dooley, loyal friend to Custis, goes along to keep an eye on his friend.
Vanderhaeghe ("The Englishman's Boy") moves seamlessly between viewpoints, going deep into his characters' psyches and memories, exploring their self-doubts, joys and demons, without, however, stinting on the action, of which there is plenty, both past and present.
Often the challenging terrain often seems adventure enough: "Powdery clay steams into the air, cloaks men and beasts in a choking, sallow cloud. Everyone is too dry-mouthed to speak, the only sounds accompanying the advance are the faint music of jangling trace chains, the plangent protest of axles, the dull plod of hooves."
And the ill-sorted companions begin to grate even more on each other. "Seeing Addington Gaunt prink and preen is a most grievous pain in the fundament," thinks Custis, who also notes: "The baleful gaze Potts is turning on the Captain makes me a tad uneasy." Custis has more serious matters on his mind, though. Kate and Charles Gaunt, an unsuitable pairing if ever there was one, are spending a lot of time sneaking off together. But Kate rejects his warnings and Charles is too much the gentleman to even acknowledge them.
Vanderhaeghe's West is much like the best of Larry McMurtry's - full of deep souls and vicious creeps, cruelty and kindness, paradox and contradiction and miles of beautiful, dangerous country. His prose is rich and vivid in every voice, from Custis' earthy vernacular to Jerry Potts' barely articulate pain, to Charles' earnest and natural refinement. A big, rousing, involving story from a writer who ought to be better known than he is.
Rating: 
Summary: Great storis of thw old west makes this a entertaining novel
Review: Hard to get into but when it does it's a great novel.It's fullof suspence,adventure,romance and action everything a novel should have.Parts do drag on and those parts are hard to get through becouse they are the first 100 when you get passed that you'll love this book.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!!!
Review: I don't read many books (oh I've got enough hobbies to kill a horse), but on a tip from a friend I picked this one up. And did I enjoy it? It is amazing. Amazing. I dare say the best read I've ever had. It's a real pass-it-on-to-your-loved-ones-and-read-it-quick-so-we-can-talk-about-it-book. I so recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding In All Respects!
Review: I found this to be a superbly crafted epic. The writing is excellent and the story compelling. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Canadian Novel
Review: I tried to read the Englishman's Boy but couldn't, so I was hesitant to read the Last Crossing at my wife's behest. Hesitantly I began. But soon I was right in to it.
I enjoyed it! A great summer read.
Rating: 
Summary: The book that never ends
Review: If you've read Lonesome Dove, then you've already read a similar, but much better book (and LD has it's own faults!).This is another book that needs fewer characters with more development.The character Charles was the most developed and his narratives just went on and on. In fact, that is my main complaint with the book: it should have been wrapped up in one tight ending instead of "this is what happened to Potts, this is what happened to Addington, then this happened to Charles....". Seemed way too drawn out.
Would have rather read about Simon than Charles. The book really grabbed me when Simon was crawling inside the buffalo and then that just got forgotten about.
And the resolution of the murder: the reaction seemed a little too "oh,well I'll be darned" to be believable. Another missed opportunity to bring excitement into the story.To sum up, fewer pages, more action, more character development of key characters.
Rating:
Summary: Duty, honor, and love, sublimely rendered
Review: Once in awhile, a book comes along that haunts its readers' thoughts for years. The Last Crossing is such a book. Set in the latter part of the 1800s, in the western U.S. and Canada, and in Victorian England, this is a tale of a a man lost in the wilderness, and those who seek to find him, including his very stiff British father, two very different brothers, a pair of star-crossed lovers, a quirky journalist, a saloon-keeper, and an Indian guide. They all suffer from painful pasts that taunt them into life-changing courses of action. Telling the story from their own points of view, the characters look back at their own lives. This drives each of them to live up to their sense of duty, to defend their own honor, and ultimately to act in one way or another because they either love, or can't love. Scenes of the early west tear at the heart--caravans, Indian villages, conflicts, battles, disease, death, tragedy, comic relief. And love, sometimes unrequited, and at a distance. There is one scene that will stay with me for years. In it, two lovers find each other, their desperate searches ending and beginning in an instant. The night air, the stars, the prairie wind and their hearts carry them to where they couldn't dream of going. The characters speak with undeniable truth to and about themselves. They narrate, but also wonder about their own personal honor and how they can love despite their pasts and the hard lessons that duty and love teach them.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to put down!
Review: Stunning, rich, exquisite characterization, finely-honed plot...you name it and this book has it. Guy Vanderhaeghe has re-created a historical period here that is timeless and universal in its themes of love, revenge, and family connections yet utterly believable in its deceptively simple plot. I fell in love with the naive Charles Gaunt and was properly contemptuous of his take-charge brother, Addison. The characters of Jerry Potts, Custis Straw and Lucy are complex yet they defy simple pigeonholes. I took the risk of reading this library book in the bathtub (one of my favorite forms of relaxation) since I couldn't stop reading it in my spare time. A thoroughly engaging read!
Sue-Ellen Stillwell Jones
Librarian
Fort Collins, Colorado
Rating:
Summary: Top-notch
Review: The good news is that Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe has published six other books besides this one. This is important because once you finishedhis new novel "The Last Crossing" you will be scouring libraries, bookstores, and the internet for more. What a good writer! His 1996 novel "The Englishman's Boy" was also excellent, but his newest book reaches an even higher level. His use of multiple points of view is marvelous and the characters have a depth and appeal that adds excitement, pathos, and surprise to a really good plot. In the 1870's, a young Englishman named Simon Gaunt travels into Montana as a missionary and vanishes. His difficult, heartbroken father orders his two other sons to go to Ft. Benton and find him at all costs. Addington is a disgraced military man and Simon's twin Charles is a painter disappointed in himself for his own shallow nature. Charles is desperate to find Simon but Addington seems to look on the whole trip as one big outdoor adventure, showing up at the fort with a seedy, sycophantic "newspaperman" who plans to record Addington's feats in the wilderness for the penny press. They contract the Blackfoot/Scottish guide Jerry Potts to lead them, but by the time the Gaunts' wagons leave Ft. Benton, they have also collected a woman searching for her sister's killer and are trailed by the man who loves her, and who in turn is trailed by his best friend. The search for the missing missionary is in danger of being derailed by the quirks and passions of his search party. But Simon Gaunt remains the lodestar for this group, and only later do we find out why. "The Last Crossing" is satisfying, readable, thoughtful, and thrilling. If you have not read Guy Vanderhaeghe before, he is a wonderful discovery.
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