false 315340 20 The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. Laurent Jammett had been a voyageur for the Hudson Bay Company before an accident lamed him four years earlier. The same accident afforded him the little parcel of land in Dove River, land that the locals called unlucky due to the untimely death of the previous owner. A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees the tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. It is Mrs. Ross's knock on the door of the largest house in Caulfield that launches the investigation. Within hours she will regret that knock with a mother's love -- for soon she makes another discovery: her seventeen-year-old son Francis has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the crime and to the township -- Andrew Knox, Dove River's elder statesman; Thomas Sturrock, a wily American itinerant trader; Donald Moody, the clumsy young Company representative; William Parker, a half-breed Native American and trapper who was briefly detained for Jammett's murder before becoming Mrs. Ross's guide. But the question remains: do these men want to solve the crime or exploit it? One by one, the searchers set out from Dove River following the tracks across a desolate landscape -- home to only wild animals, madmen, and fugitives -- variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for seventeen years, and a forgotten Native American culture before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good. In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation, and humor into an exhilarating thriller; a panoramic historical romance; a gripping murder mystery; and, ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, an epic for the ages. 1725483 2006 The Tenderness of Wolves: A Novel total:1477|5:267|4:624|3:441|2:123|1:22| 1477 5422 2409 466 3 12 false false Mon Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 07:45:50 -0700 2008 Mon Sep 08 03:10:44 -0700 2008 Alfred Hitchcock explained in a lecture at Columbia University: "We have a name in the studio, and we call it the 'MacGuffin.' It is the mechanical element that usu...more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 09 12:00:36 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 11:30:39 -0800 2007
The setting is the 1860s in Canada, where the small community of ...more...]]> 3 3 false false Fri Aug 01 12:20:50 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 01 12:20:57 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Mar 10 18:44:49 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 10 18:44:49 -0700 2008
A host of interesting characters, a dramatic environment, a historical setting, even a murder mystery. Lots of interesting characters and...more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Dec 16 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 19 19:57:03 -0800 2007 Wed Mar 19 13:40:21 -0700 2008 and gay characters. I really thought I was going to like this book. Instead, I struggled to keep up with its meandering pace and mostly unsympathetic characters, only to be confronted by a conclusion th...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Apr 24 08:28:05 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 24 08:32:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Thu May 15 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 18 15:44:23 -0700 2008 Wed May 21 20:00:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 1 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Apr 02 17:12:49 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 02 17:48:57 -0700 2008
I started to read, and I was immediately struck by the interestin...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 19:16:44 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 23 19:26:15 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 25 13:10:09 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 25 13:17:28 -0700 2007
I just read this by the Guardian: "The (Costa) judges said it made them feel 'enveloped in the ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Sep 09 05:50:43 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 09 05:58:40 -0700 2007
The story involves a mother's search for her teenage son in the Canadian wilderness in the late 1...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 01 10:01:22 -0700 2007 Tue Jan 01 10:02:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Dec 22 13:42:10 -0800 2007 Sat Dec 22 13:42:15 -0800 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 11 17:44:22 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 11 18:07:59 -0700 2009
Regardless, a bunch of mis...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 27 16:36:27 -0800 2008 Thu Nov 27 16:46:14 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Tue Sep 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 11:50:51 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 08 11:52:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Sep 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 20:14:40 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 20:40:11 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jul 17 09:49:39 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 09:49:55 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Dec 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 02 20:03:30 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 02 20:16:59 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 28 06:09:18 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 26 06:13:38 -0700 2007 more...]]>