The Tenderness of Wolves

I saw this one sitting on our Interlibrary Loan desk waiting to be returned to the Grant County Public Library. The title, The Tenderness of Wolves, caught my interest. I don't know why, because I hate cold weather, but cold weather settings intrigue me so I read the blurb and the opening paragraph and decided I wanted to read it. Stef Penney is British but the novel is set in Canada in the 1860's. More than simply a mystery it is a historical drama set against the ethnic difficulties that faced the Indians, French, English, Scottish, and Norwegian settlers as they faced life in the New World.

A brutally murdered trapper is discovered as the book opens by a mother whose 17 year-old adopted son goes missing. Crime, clues, treks, hostile weather, unforgiving landscape, and privation face those seeking answers to the various unknowns introduced by author Stef Penney.

The first novel has won several European awards and Penney is working on her second novel set in England.

After finishing Pete Hamill's latest, North River, I still wanted more of a taste so I picked The Gift off the shelf for a quick read. The novel is slight, but,

"A powerful short novel that's vintage Hamill-an evocative, emotionally involving tale of fathers and sons, loss and yearning, forgiveness and approbation-is restored to print..."
--according to Amazon.