tw: gore and very brief description of rape.

my second time reading anything by Stephen Graham Jones and I was not disappointed. I am not a fan of horror I tend to stay away from it particular movies because it stays with me and I end up being scared well after it's over. It's because of this that I never bother to even try a horror book. Until now.

this is a story of an indigenous man named Good Stab who - against his will - brutally loses his life in more than one way. We follow him as he goes thru the years heavily struggling with who he has become and what he ends up doing to continuing living. We see him deal with losing connection to his people, his tribe - while at the same time doing what he can to still be there for them. There are a lot of moments where we get to see the extent of how horribly Indigenous people are treated in the past and the present, unfortunately in pretty violent ways.

We also get a POV from a priest who is definitely not what he portrays himself to be and we slowly come to the conclusion that even if he has that black robe on and preaches the word of God he will never be able to escape his past deeds.

Frankly, the priests' POV is not as important to this story as Good Stab's is. He's frankly just a character used to embody the fucking audacity of white people and their never ending privilege in this world. So, hallelujah to the ending of this book.

Overall, I highly enjoyed this book and I would recommend listening to the audio book as well the duet narration is fantastic.

Thank you to Sagapress for allowing me to receive this ARC

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is about a pastor who discovered a diary in a wall. In the diary we see a massacre and events told in interviews by a Blackfeet person named Good Stab. Horrors and more are revealed along the way as Stephen Graham Jones brings another horror entry.

This book was a case of the wrong time for me! What I did read was excellent and for now, I’m putting it on pause because I want to dedicate as much attention to it as I can. I cannot wait to read this in the fall and get back into the story.

Thank you so much to Saga Press and NetGalley for this ARC.

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter was one I was so excited to read, but sadly this one was not for me. It follows the life of a vampire who hangs out in the fields of a Blackfeet reservation looking for justice. I had a hard time following and understanding what was going in this book. The names were confusing, as well. I really liked the premise of this one, but it just was not for me. I would still suggest this one to readers who like horror. Thank you to Saga Press and NetGalley for this read in exchange of my honest review of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.

I was so excited to read this book and am so sad to only give it 3 stars. Honestly, I spent most of the book feeling really dumb and like there was something I wasn't quite getting. Stephen Graham Jones writes so beautifully and the premise was incredibly up my alley, but something about the readability wasn't there for me and I couldn't follow along. This is my first book by the author.

I think this might just be a me problem honestly--please don't let this review dissuade you from reading.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for this ARC.

Thank you so much to Saga Press for the complimentary copy of the book!

This is my first Stephen Graham Jones book and I fear that I think I may have been too dumb for it. I struggled with majority of the book. I don't think that it was anything that author had done. I am not sure what didn't work for me but I just was so confused majority of the time with what was happening. I was in a buddy read and they warned me that it would take a while before things start to click. So I stuck with it and stuck with it and stuck with it and yet I still remained confused. I thought I knew what was happening but ultimately I really didn't. And I wanted to so bad. The Indigenous history that Jones had put in the book is so important, I just wasn't able to comprehend it. Very much could be a Stephanie brain issue as so many people loved the book.

I will say the shining light and what I wish we could have seen more of was the current timeline with Etsy. The publisher provided the audiobook and I loved Marin Ireland's narration! There was extra sound effects that really made her parts come alive at the end. I wish we could've seen more of Etsy throughout the book to break up Good Stab and Arthur Beaucrane parts.

I think if I had a reader's guide as I was reading or was being taught this book as I was reading, I would have been able to enjoy it more.
I recommend checking out other reviews because I know they will talk about how stellar of a book this is and better reasons why you should read this.

2.5

I did not look at the genre before clicking on this book. I am NOT a horror person so take my Star rating with that in mind. It was not for me but I really see a horror fan LOVING this book.

This book was really hard for me to focus on. It started a little slow. The story eventually picked up.

This is an outstanding horror novel. It's a dark, bloody, and gruesome tale of vengeance where the true horror is not the vampire lurking in the dark, but the atrocities committed by Americans against the people native to this land.

In this book, an academic painstakingly reads through a tattered journal written by her great great grandfather in 1912. He was a Lutheran priest, and in this journal, he records the story told to him by Good-Stab, a Blackfeet who arrives each Sunday for a series of "confessions". The unique writing style is conversational, trending towards stream of consciousness. I enjoy this type of prose (when done well). If you do not, I've heard from several people that the audiobook is good for readers who struggle with this style. This will be in the running for one of my best books of the year.

Title: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Publisher: Saga Press
Release Date: March 18, 2025
Genre: Historical Horror / Supernatural Thriller / Literary Fiction
Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)

Review by Ryan Thomas LaBee

Stephen Graham Jones tears vampire lore down to the bones in The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, then reanimates it with blood, memory, and rage. This is not a horror novel that flirts with darkness—this is full immersion into ancestral trauma, settler colonial violence, and the monster that memory makes of us all. Set across a dual timeline—1912 and the present day—Jones unearths the buried sins of the American West with surgical precision and brutal elegance.

Thank you to Saga Press, NetGalley, and the publisher’s editorial team for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this genre-defying, soul-scorching novel.

The novel centers on the confessions of Good Stab, a Blackfeet man transformed into something ancient and immortal—a being shaped by the Bear River and Marias massacres, not merely undead but undying in purpose. His story, told through the found journal of Lutheran pastor Arthur Beaucarne, emerges in fragments. Transcribed in a fading Montana church, his testimony is a reckoning: for himself, for white settlers, and for the very idea of American exceptionalism.

Jones structures the novel as a story-within-a-story-within-a-story. The outer layer features Etsy Beaucarne, Arthur’s descendant, a tenure-track professor trying to salvage her career with the discovery of the journal. While Etsy’s thread is thinner than the rest, it serves as a necessary reminder that history—particularly Indigenous history—is often excavated and reframed by those with the privilege to publish it.

But the meat of this book is Good Stab’s voice, rendered in prose that is visceral, poetic, and unlike anything else in horror fiction. His language is steeped in Blackfeet cosmology, reframing the world through the eyes of someone who knows its violence too well. Bison become “blackhorns,” men become “Cat Men,” and survival becomes sacrament. It’s challenging at times—there’s no glossary, and the syntax demands focus—but the reward is staggering.

Jones plays with vampirism not just as myth, but as metaphor: for genocide, for assimilation, for consumption without consent. Good Stab’s condition, with its grotesque feeding rituals and shape-shifting transformations, is horrifying—but never more so than the real, historical atrocities that birthed it. The Bear River Massacre. The bison slaughter. The quiet, bureaucratic brutality of white expansionism. Jones doesn’t let you look away.

The horror here is slow-burning, dread-laced, and deeply moral. Think Dracula filtered through Blood Meridian and sharpened with a post-colonial edge. The emotional climax—when history and horror converge in full force—is devastating. You’ll feel it in your spine. You’ll feel it in your teeth.

Final Verdict:
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a masterpiece of historical horror—a haunting, harrowing American gothic epic. Stephen Graham Jones doesn’t just add to the vampire canon—he detonates it and builds something entirely new. This is horror that remembers. Horror that bleeds. Horror that matters.

Recommended for readers who enjoy:

Indigenous horror and anti-colonial narratives

Epistolary horror in the tradition of Dracula

Literary horror that demands emotional and intellectual investment

The mythological rewritten as testimonial truth

Authors like Louise Erdrich, Victor LaValle, and Catriona Ward

Buffalo Hunter Hunter is a dual timeline story (1912 and present day) mostly told through journal entries of a Lutheran pastor taking a confession of sorts from a Blackfoot man. This is a revenge story and a vampire story. And I absolutely loved it. It, although is one of the more difficult books I’ve read, it’s based around the Bear River Massacre where an entire tribe of Blackfeet were murdered. There’s also descriptions of child abuse, sexual assault and animal cruelty.

The way this story is told is very interesting, it is written like Arther (the Miles City pastor) is transcribing exactly what Good Stab is telling him. The use of authentic Native American language was such an amazing addition. SGJ is an amazing story teller. There are so many things that are brought back around and tied together. His writing is unique and memorable.

Good Stab may be one of my all time favorite fictional characters.

I appreciated this story so much, this historical take on vampirism and Good Stab's story was unputdownable. I did this in tandem with the audiobook and it was such an immersive experience. This is told from multiple POVs across time and it was the perfect vehicle for this story and the message SGJ was relaying. If you're not a big horror reader, I would still recommend, it was definitely eerie at times, but far more historical and eerie more in the sense of the impact that colonialism had on the first nations peoples, and less to do with Good Stab being a vampire himself. Vampires are so back, but the added layers of a much needed story made this so much more of an important and enjoyable read.

Truly an incredible addition to the literary vampire canon. I cannot express all the ways in which I love how this adds new levels of horror to the figure of the vampire. Truly revolutionary

Thank you to Saga Press for an advance copy of THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER!

In the best way possible, I’m finding it difficult to write a review for THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER. To start, it left me absolutely in tears, but I’m not completely shocked by that, considering most SGJ books leave me emotionally devastated. A story about grief, revenge, identity, and the past that makes up our identity (and how it shapes us), I realized about 25% into reading THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER, I was encountering a rare reading experience. I’ve spoken about this before, but certain books make you thankful to be a reader, and TBHH is a book that falls into this category. Horrific and brutal scenes are interwoven with the most beautiful and moving passages in a way that only SGJ can do. SGJ’s twist on the vampire is unique and unexpected, and I loved every part of it.

This tale of an ancient vampire roaming the wild west is horrific. Quite honestly, I hated it. What a disturbing and violent acid trip! Jones made me remember things I'd rather forget, and put images in my head that I'd rather not see. All the same, I'll never pass up the chance to read one of his books. He is a master at messing with your mind.

A fantastic, gripping, historical twist on the vampire novel that asks: Who are the real monsters? Visceral and haunting.

Interview with the Vampire wrapped in The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Jones is a challenging, but worthwhile read and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter is no exception.

This novel is also coming out at an opportune moment, coming in the midst of a seeming spike in vampire media popularity, like Nosferatu and Sinners recently. Like Sinners, Jones uses the vampire as a vehicle to explore the violent extraction and bloodshed at the heart of American expansionism. Good Stab is, in some ways, sympathetic, appearing as almost a tragic, sentimental figure, but he is still a monstrous nightmare.

I will be thinking about this novel for a long time.

Stephen Graham Jones is a master, and this could very well be a master's masterpiece, which says a lot, considering Jones has been putting out some of the best writing (regardless of genre) that exists currently.

✨🦬 Book Review 🦬✨
Thank you Saga Press for the gifted ARC!

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Stephen Graham Jones
Publishing Date: March 18, 2025
4.25 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚡️

Stephen Graham Jones tells meaningful stories about underrepresented characters in a unique and intriguing way. I love books that make me think and make me feel and he delivers on these fronts every time.

This is my second book by SGJ and I am learning that his writing style is a bit confusing (at least for me), always a slowwwwww burn, but 100% worth the effort every time. His books are not mindless reads and you can’t just pop in an airpod and go about your day. You need to focus and really digest what you’re reading. A tandem read with both eyes and ears is a bonus. I know this may not sound appealing, but I promise you the time and energy pays off in the end. Every time. I will now just trust the process with all SGJ books.

This book is historical fiction meets horror with a western flavor. Much of the story is told in epistolary format via confessional journal entries. As with many historicsk fiction/horror books, the real horror here is the realities of the treatment of native people. This book is gruesome and grim, it is dark and filled with despair, it is honest and an important story to be told.. and there is revenge🔥

There are a lot of words spoken by the Pikuni people that I simply did not know what they meant. Neeta has something of a glossary she created in her review post which I found super helpful!

THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER by Stephen Graham Jones is the best vampire novel I’ve read in years: bold, brutal, and entirely unforgettable. Stephen Graham Jones doesn’t just breathe new life into the genre; he tears it wide open and rebuilds it with style, rage, and heart.

Calling it his best work feels almost impossible given the legacy he’s already created, but somehow, he’s done it. This one is a towering achievement that’s going to echo through horror fiction for years to come. A future classic, no question.

Thank you to NetGalley and to SAGA Press for the chance to read an ARC. I’m still reeling.

This was probably the best historical horror novel I’ve ever read. I was locked in on this story and didn’t want to put it down, I’m a huge fan of Stephen Graham Jones and was so excited to have access to an early galley. I can’t say enough good things about this, definitely a must read for 2025.