The Cheerful Blackguard

José de la Mancha y O'Brien has spent his young life caring for his brother after their parents died. Now the Brat has run off to parts unknown, and José, a man of Spanish and Irish blood navigating the rough frontier of early Canada, sets out to find him. His search leads him through Winnipeg's seedier corners, into trouble with men less honorable than himself, and ultimately into the path of Rain, a Blackfoot girl whose presence disrupts everything he thought he knew about love and belonging. Roger Pocock writes with the roguish warmth his title promises. This is a novel about the impossible distances between cultures and the bridges people build across them anyway. José is nobody's hero, just a mixed-blood young man with a good heart and a talent for finding mischief. His journey through the collide of Native American and settler societies pulses with adventure, humor, and the quiet ache of belonging nowhere and everywhere at once.