Author of three acclaimed novels, Last Year’s River (Houghton Mifflin), A Bloom of Bones (a Montana Book Award honor book), and Sweeney on the Rocks (Ig Publishing), a highly influential consideration of the ethics of hunting, A Quiet Place of Violence, a Spur Award-winning children’s book, Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State, and co-editor, with William Kittredge, of The Best of Montana’s Short Fiction, Allen Morris Jones (1970 – ) is also the author of more than one hundred published short stories, articles, essays, and poems. He began his twenty-year career in publishing as Editor of the magazine Big Sky Journal before going on to work as an acquisitions editor for the Lyons Press and as publisher of his own small book house, Bangtail Press. He has appeared on Jim Lehrer’s “PBS NewsHour” as a guest essayist, lectured to the Outdoor Writer’s Association of America, and seen reviews of his work appear on the “Today” show and in the LA Times, People magazine, Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and many others. He lives in Montana with his wife and young son. (Photo by Karen Kenyon.)Sweeney on the Rocks
“Think ‘Goodfellas’ with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake, set in the landscape of ‘A River Runs through It’—a unique and tasty treat for crime-fiction fans.”
Booklist (Starred Review)
“A terrific, stylish writer … Jones has written a smashing crime novel, adding to his perfectly pitched comic voice with nicely drawn characters and a strong sense of place.”
Kirkus Reviews
“A book as flawless as an authentic diamond could possibly be.”
Foreword Magazine
Montana for Kids: The Story of Our State
Spur Award Winner, 2019
Best Western Storyteller / Children’s Illustrated Book
Last Year’s River
“Allen Jones’s book is full of strengths, not least of which is its furious readability.”
Thomas McGuane
“Allen Jones knows the West by heart.”
William Kittredge
“As clean as wind and water and stone…”
Rick Bass
“The quiet space in which his characters…reside is what carves out a niche for this book that has formerly been occupied only by true literary greats.”
Barnes & Noble
Discover Great New Writers Citation
A Quiet Place of Violence
“I know of no recent book that explores the hunter’s ethic with more probity, more satisfying anecdote, more visceral wisdom…”
Nick Lyons
“…a rich, complex work that deserves an enduring place on the bookshelf right next to Ortega y Gasset.”
E. Donnall Thomas, Jr.
“…at once a joy to read and an important defense of the hunt.”
Stephen J. Bodio
A Bloom of Bones
“Jones rides … into the hard country populated by the best of Western writers.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Jones’s novel seems to have emerged from an older, more elemental world, a mythic, almost biblical place where it’s taken for granted that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the sons.”
Library Journal
“This is an exquisitely crafted book, and one to be savored.”
Foreword Magazine
