The Tenderness of Wolves

Excuse the stock picture folks--I can't seem to find the camera's battery charger. Tenderness of Wolves (Stef Penney), Literary, historical murder and wilderness story.

Dove River Canada in 1867, Hudson’s Bay era. A fur trapper has been murdered, and there's a rumor that he had in his possession something very valuable. A 17-year-old boy disappears the night of the murder. You'd think that's enough action to start us off, but add to that the interconnections of the townspeople and the town's dark history, which includes the disappearance of two little girls many years ago.

Mrs. Ross. discovered the fur trapper's body. She is a bit of an outsider, serious, married to a man who doesn't get along with their now missing son. Not only are people talking about a possible connection but it's a difficult winter; Mrs. Ross decides to go after her son, taking the other murder suspect as her guide, a native by the name of Parker.

Hudson's Bay man Donald Moody then comes into the picture. Charged with finding the fur trapper's killer, Moody soon falls in love, he thinks, with one of town sisters so that his own coming of age (poor guy) is intertwined with his assignment to solve a murder. He and a party set out into the snow, and young, inexperienced Moody has no idea what he's in for.

When I started reading, I did not know what to expect. I picked it up because I liked the writing. Well suited to the harsh and intricate winter world described. But then the story wove itself deeper and deeper through the characters and all their individual [internal and external] goings-on. Pretty soon my mind was bound by about a million plot or personality threads and shortly after that, I ran out of pages to read.

So I liked it. I liked the history, the perspective of being on the move, trying to survive a Canadian winter, the idea of an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company being responsible for justice. (I kept imagining going into the local department store, now named simply 'The Bay,' for this kind of service).

We do indeed find answers, and a remote Hudson's Bay outpost in a degraded state (very Heart of Darkness). In the midst of that we get a real look into an older and more dangerous world.

What the heck, let's start a rating system from 1 to 10, 10 being the best.

I give this one: 8