From
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The frigid isolation of European immigrants
living on the 19th-century Canadian frontier is the setting for British
author Penney's haunting debut. Seventeen-year-old Francis Ross
disappears the same day his mother discovers the scalped body of his
friend, fur trader Laurent Jammet, in a neighboring cabin. The murder
brings newcomers to the small settlement, from inexperienced Hudson Bay
Company representative Donald Moody to elderly eccentric Thomas Sturrock,
who arrives searching for a mysterious archeological fragment once in
Jammet's possession. Other than Francis, no real suspects emerge until
half-Indian trapper William Parker is caught searching the dead man's
house. Parker escapes and joins with Francis's mother to track Francis
north, a journey that produces a deep if unlikely bond between them.
Only when the pair reaches a distant Scandinavian settlement do both
characters and reader begin to understand Francis, who arrived there
days before them. Penney's absorbing, quietly convincing narrative
illuminates the characters, each a kind of outcast, through whose
complex viewpoints this dense, many-layered story is told.