The hard-boiled crime reporter at a fictional newspaper in Butte, Montana, writes about a series of murders that shake the Mining City in 1954. Kieran “Red” Maguire turns out story after story on his battered typewriter as the killer remains at large.
In Mystery of the Purple Roses, Maguire becomes a sleuth, tracking evidence to its improbable conclusion.
The novel’s author, Montana native Kevin S. Giles, said Butte’s rough-and-tumble history provides an alluring setting for a murder mystery.
Purple Roses hero
“Butte is a city of a million stories, a storm of hoarse working-class voices, all begging us to listen to what they have to say,” Giles said.
“I wrote Mystery of the Purple Roses with the old magazine-style pulp fiction genre in mind, taking the story to the dark streets where hard men and loose women ply their trade. I’m introducing Red Maguire, a humble newswriting hero, as a character who can live through several novels set in Butte.”
Buy! Mystery of the Purple Roses
From the cover of Mystery of the Purple Roses:
Red Maguire, newsman crime fighter, investigates a string of odd murders in Montana in this pulp fiction mystery by Kevin S. Giles.
“All through the summer of 1954 in Butte, Montana, a series of curious murders haunt Kieran “Red” Maguire, crime reporter for the Bugle daily newspaper. They appear to have nothing in common with one another except for a single purple rose placed on each victim.
“Red and his hard-nosed crime-fighting accomplice, police captain Harold “Duke” Ferndale, struggle to find clues that will solve a chilling mystery that terrifies residents of the Mining City. Red, a love-deprived but handsome Irishman, encounters adoring women, bare-knuckle criminals, outrageous characters who roam the streets, and a relentless Bugle editor who spares no murderous details so newsboys can bark lurid headlines in uptown bars.
“Through it all, Red copes with haunting memories of his pretty young mother, reminding the reader that no hero escapes the clutches of past regrets.”
Giles said he decided to write the mystery novel after revisiting Butte several times in recent years. “History screams from every street corner,” he said.
“Extensive photographic evidence already documents the city’s tumultuous past. I let my imagination fill in the rest. Butte was a city of characters – and still is, people born of a cultural spirit that spun tales faster than the rest of us could wonder at them. I wrote my novel not just for fun, but because of some strange compulsion to share in the Butte story. It feels like good manners, after visiting Butte, to write about the experience.”
three other books about Montana
Giles, a native of Deer Lodge, Montana, and a former Butte resident, has published three other books related to western Montana. Two of them are nonfiction: Jerry’s Riot: The True Story of Montana’s 1959 Prison Disturbance, and a biography, One Woman Against War: The Jeannette Rankin Story. He also has published a novel, Summer of the Black Chevy, that takes place in Deer Lodge.
He has worked at six newspapers as editor, reporter and photographer. He lives and writes in Minnesota.
Mystery of the Purple Roses is available at booklocker.com, Amazon.com, and other book retailing websites. It’s available to bookstores through the book distributor Ingram and to libraries through Overdrive.
Find Kevin's books on Amazon (and leave a review, please!)
Western Montana native Kevin S. Giles wrote the popular prison nonfiction work Jerry’s Riot, the coming-of-age novel Summer of the Black Chevy, and a biography of Montana congresswoman Jeannette Rankin, One Woman Against War, which is an expanded version of his earlier work, “Flight of the Dove.” His new novel, Headline: FIRE! is the third in the Red Maguire series. Masks, Mayhem and Murder is the second. The first is “Mystery of the Purple Roses.” More information is available at https://kevinsgiles.com.