The tenderness of wolves

Review by New York Times Review

IF I'd been asked to bet on who'd write the definitive crime novel about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of New Orleans, my money would have been on James Lee Burke. And that's just what he delivers in THE TIN ROOF BLOWDOWN (Simon & Schuster, $26), a hardboiled cops-and-robbers yarn that puts a human face on anonymous acts of good and evil in the chaos and horror of this natural disaster and its manmade aftermath. Harnessing all his poetic skills, Burke delivers his dispatches in torrents of sorrow and rage. Seen from this vantage, the hurricane sweeps in with fierce majesty, shredding the fragile coastline and lingering to toy with the most helpless of its victims. When it finally moves on, "the damage in New Orleans," Detective Dave Robicheaux remarks, is "of a kind we associate with apocalyptical images from the Bible." The images Burke chooses - of abandoned hospitals, "Visigoth"style vandalism and pandemonium at the Convention Center - are memorable in their own hellish ways. But the sights that really burn your eyes are grimly surreal: a dead baby hanging from the branches of a tree and "thousands of shrieking birds" circling overhead, "as though they had no place to land." And the question that stays with you is posed by an old man poking through the rubble, looking for his drowned wife: "How come nobody come for us?" James Lee Burke The scene that haunts more than one character is set in the Lower Ninth Ward, where Father Jude LeBlanc ventures into the floodwaters and disappears. When last seen, he's being attacked while climbing onto the roof of a church from a motorboat, ax in hand, trying to rescue a group of parishioners trapped in the attic. After the pummeling the state has taken, the legal system in southern Louisiana is barely functioning. Like other ablebodied police officers, Robicheaux is reassigned from his home base of New Iberia to cover crimes in New Orleans, in his case the shooting of two looters who unwittingly robbed and trashed the home of a New Orleans mobster. But Father LeBlanc, known around town as "the junkie priest," was a friend of Robicheaux's, and he makes LeBlanc's fate a priority mission as he navigates the city looking for forensic evidence - and for answers to some of the deeper mysteries of human behavior. The novel's expansive plot allows Robicheaux to grapple with the good, the bad and the morally confused, while its biblical theme gives even the worst criminals a chance to repent and make amends. And while Burke blames neither God nor nature for the ruination of New Orleans, he can't forgive the federal government for contributing to the city's vulnerability, then turning its back on the ensuing destruction. Although not in any conventional way a genre novel, Rupert Thomson's DEATH OF A MURDERER (Knopf, $23) says a great deal about the impact of evil on people who consider themselves civilized. As beautifully written as it is provocative, this psychological study places a decent man in close proximity to a malevolent force - and settles back to watch. In terms of action, nothing much happens; but by the end of this subtly disturbing story, life itself seems a lot more precious. The murderer of the title, who remains unnamed, is clearly Myra Hindley, a partner in the notorious Moors Murders that caused England to tremble for its children in the 1960s. Dead of natural causes after decades in prison, she is lying in a mortuary and her body must be guarded until its cremation. A police constable named Billy Tyler pulls the graveyard shift, and before the long night is through he'll be visited by an apparition of this monstrous killer, who dares him to acknowledge his own dark side. Billy is a good man, if not a deep thinker, and his admissions of guilt - mainly about his feelings for his dull wife and a daughter with Down syndrome, but also about old friends and a lost love - are more pathetic than damnable. Still, he shows his bravery by looking evil in the eye and acknowledging that it's not an entirely unfamiliar sight. VICTORY SQUARE (St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95) marks the end to Olen Steinhauer's grim but fascinating police procedurals set in an unnamed Soviet-bloc nation very much like Romania. Emil Brod, the thoughtful protagonist of this wellplotted series, has grown more fatalistic since we met him as an idealistic young cop in "The Bridge of Sighs," but sliding into retirement isn't an option in the charged political climate following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Not in 1989, when revolution is in the air and the lieutenant general of the Ministry for State Security has just been murdered. While it seems contrived to force a causal relationship between Brod's first case and his last assignment as chief of the murder squad, Steinhauer doesn't dwell entirely on the past. As Brod tries to go about normal business in a police state that's about to collapse, currents of rebellion and pro-democracy fervor sizzle in the air, and this story catches all the danger and excitement of the historic moment. THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES (Simon & Schuster, $25), a first novel that won the Costa (formerly the Whitbread) Award for Stef Penney, initially presents itself as a claustrophobic 19th-century murder mystery, set in the dead of winter and confined to Dove River, an isolated European settlement on the edge of the Canadian frontier. Or so it seems when Penney's narrator, Mrs. Ross, one of the settlement's hardy pioneers, discovers the scalped corpse of a local fur trader. But when her 17-year-old son, Francis, disappears on the same day, the novel abandons its whodunit component and expands into a more ambitious form. Once Mrs. Ross strikes out in search of her son, "The Tenderness of Wolves" becomes a wilderness adventure with heavy doses of romance and native history, handled in a graceful, almost delicate, style, but strangely devoid of the thrills you'd expect in such a savage place. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Burkes detective, Dave Robicheaux, is reassigned to New Orleans.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

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Review by Booklist Review

A trapper is found murdered in his cabin, and his death precipitates a series of journeys and pursuits. Two agents from the Hudson Bay Company come to the town of Caulfied, Ontario, to investigate the murder, and then 17-year-old Francis Ross disappears, making him a suspect. Daniel Moody, company representative, sets off after him, as does Francis' mother, known just as Mrs. Ross (who narrates portions of the novel). She travels in the company of William Parker, a half-breed with his own reasons for finding the killer. Also on the trail is the shadowy Thomas Sturrock, looking for an object he believes has great value. Set during the winter of 1867, this atmospheric, multilayered first novel is part murder mystery, part historical saga, and part meditation on civilization versus wilderness. The sparsely settled, frozen landscape is vividly evoked, and each stage of the pursuit takes the characters deeper into the wild and deeper into him-or her-self. Winner of the 2006 Costa Award (formerly the Whitbread) Book of the Year. Quinn, Mary Ellen.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly 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. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

The publisher was excited about this British debut even before it was proclaimed the U.K. Costa Book of the Year (the former Whitbread Book Award), and the excitement was not misplaced. Daringly, the author sets her work in Canada's frigid northern territory in the 19th century. As winter closes in on tiny Dove River, Mrs. Ross stumbles into the cabin of mysterious neighbor Laurent Jammet and finds him murdered. Distressingly, her son Francis, something of an outsider himself, disappears at the same time. Francis is conveniently suspected of the deed, and the Company (which runs just about everything in this neck of the woods) sends Donald Moody to investigate. New to Canada, Donald struggles to find his way among the hardened settlers. Then another man, clearly native, is spotted in Jammet's cabin, arrested and beaten, and mysteriously released. In the ensuing mayhem, no one seems to have considered Mrs. Ross's devotion and resilience-she's gone to find her son. Plot summary cannot do justice to this complex and engrossing tale of human passion and folly, highlighted by the rigors of a wilderness being systematically despoiled. The characters are distinctive, their portraits startling and incisive, and the writing is fluid and beautifully detailed. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 3/15/07.]-Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

British filmmaker Penney sets her intriguing, well-wrought novel in a 19th-century Canadian farming community up-ended by the murder of a lone fur trapper. In the town of Dove River on the north shore of Georgian Bay, a middle-aged farmer's wife we know only as Mrs. Ross discovers the body of French trapper Laurent Jammet, scalped and with his throat cut. The leaders of the community and the all-important Hudson Bay Company men gather to make sense of the killing, which revives sore memories of teenage sisters Amy and Eve Seton, who set out on a picnic 15 years before and never returned. Mrs. Ross is particularly concerned about Jammet's murder because 17-year-old Francis, an Irish orphan she and her husband took in when he was five, has not come home from a fishing trip. Suspicion falls on the boy, who was known to frequent Jammet's cabin. Several other characters emerge with ties to the dead man, including Toronto lawyer Thomas Sturrock, who comes sniffing around for an ancient marked bone that might prove of invaluable archaeological consequence, and shady half-Indian intruder William Parker, who traded with Jammett. The first-person account of Mrs. Ross alternates with sections concerning Francis, who's being nursed by the kindly Norwegian inhabitants of Himmelvanger after collapsing with exhaustion while following the trail of Jammet's murderer. His determined mother has set out to find him; other search parties also track Francis, as well as Parker, runaways from Himmelvanger, people lost in the snow and the killer. Penney offers numerous strings to untangle, but moments of love amid the gelid wastes add some warmth to her teeming, multi-character tale. Winner of the U.K. Costa Book of the Year award for 2006, a striking debut by a writer with tremendous command of language, setting and voice. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The last time I saw Laurent Jammet, he was in Scott's store with a dead wolf over his shoulder. I had gone to get needles, and he had come in for the bounty. Scott insisted on the whole carcass, having once been bamboozled by a Yankee who brought in a pair of ears one day and claimed his bounty, then some time later brought in the paws for another dollar, and finally the tail. It was winter and the parts looked fairly fresh, but the con became common knowledge, to Scott's disgust. So the wolf's face was the first thing I saw when I walked in. The tongue lolled out of the mouth, which was pulled back in a grimace. I flinched, despite myself. Scott yelled and Jammet apologized profusely; it was impossible to be angry with him, what with his charm and his limp. The carcass was removed out back somewhere, and as I was browsing, they began to argue about the moth-eaten pelt that hangs over the door. I think Jammet suggested jokingly that Scott replace it with a new one. The sign under it reads, "Canis lupus (male), the first wolf to be caught in the town of Caulfield, 11th February, 1860." The sign tells you a lot about John Scott, demonstrating his pretensions to learning, his self-importance, and the craven respect for authority over truth. It certainly wasn't the first wolf to be caught around here, and there is no such thing as the town of Caulfield, strictly speaking, although he would like there to be, because then there would be a council, and he could be its mayor. "Anyway, that is a female. Males have a darker collar, and are bigger. This one is very small." Jammet knew what he was talking about, as he had caught more wolves than anyone else I know. He smiled, to show he meant no offense, but Scott takes offense like it is going out of fashion, and bristled. "I suppose you remember better than I do, Mr. Jammet?" Jammet shrugged. Since he wasn't here in 1860, and since he was French, unlike the rest of us, he had to watch his step. At this point I stepped up to the counter. "I think it was a female, Mr. Scott. The man who brought it in said her cubs howled all night. I remember it distinctly." And the way Scott strung up the carcass by its back legs outside the store for everyone to gawp at. I had never seen a wolf before, and I was surprised at its smallness. It hung with its nose pointing at the ground, eyes closed as if ashamed. Men mocked the carcass, and children laughed, daring each other to put their hands in its mouth. They posed with it for each other's amusement. Scott turned tiny, bright blue eyes on me, either affronted that I should side with a foreigner, or just affronted, it was hard to tell. "And look what happened to him." Doc Wade, the man who brought in the bounty, drowned the following spring -- as though that threw his judgment into question. "Ah, well..." Jammet shrugged and winked at me, the cheek. Somehow -- I think Scott mentioned it first -- we got talking about those poor girls, as people usually do when the subject of wolves is raised. Although there are any number of unfortunate females in the world (plenty in my experience alone), around here "those poor girls" always refers to only two -- the Seton sisters, who vanished all those years ago. There were a few minutes' pleasant and pointless exchange of views that broke off suddenly when the bell rang and Mrs. Knox came in. We pretended to be very interested in the buttons on the counter. Laurent Jammet took his dollar, bowed to me and Mrs. Knox, and left. The bell jangled on its metal spring for a long time after he walked out. That was all, nothing significant about it. The last time I saw him. Laurent Jammet was our closest neighbor. Despite this, his life was a mystery to us. I used to wonder how he hunted wolves with his bad leg, and then someone told me that he baited deer meat with strychnine. The skill came in following the trail to the resulting corpse. I don't know, though; that is not hunting as I see it. I know wolves have learned to stay out of range of a Winchester rifle, so they cannot be entirely stupid, but they are not so clever that they have learned to distrust a free gift of food, and where is the merit in following a doomed creature to its end? There were other unusual things about him: long trips away from home in parts unknown; visits from dark, taciturn strangers; and brief displays of startling generosity, in sharp counterpoint to his dilapidated cabin. We knew that he was from Quebec. We knew that he was Catholic, although he did not often go to church or to confession (though he may have indulged in both during his long absences). He was polite and cheerful, although he did not have particular friends, and kept a certain distance. And he was, I daresay, handsome, with almost-black hair and eyes, and features that gave the impression of having just finished smiling, or being just about to start. He treated all women with the same respectful charm, but managed not to irritate either them or their husbands. He was not married and showed no inclination to do so, but I have noticed that some men are happier on their own, especially if they are rather slovenly and irregular in their habits. Some people attract an idle and entirely unmalicious envy. Jammet was one of those, lazy and good-natured, who seem to slide through life without toil or effort. I thought him lucky, because he did not seem to worry about those things that turn the rest of us gray. He had no gray hairs, but he had a past, which he kept mostly to himself. He imagined himself to have a future, too, I suppose, but he did not. He was perhaps forty. It was as old as he would ever get. It is a Thursday morning in mid-November, about two weeks after that meeting in the store. I walk down the road from our house in a dreadful temper, planning my lecture carefully. More than likely I rehearse it aloud -- one of many strange habits that are all too easy to pick up in the backwoods. The road -- actually little more than a series of ruts worn by hooves and wheels -- follows the river where it plunges down a series of shallow falls. Under the birches patches of moss gleam emerald in the sunlight. Fallen leaves, crystallized by the night's frost, crackle under my feet, whispering of the coming winter. The sky is an achingly clear blue. I walk quickly in my anger, head high. It probably makes me look cheerful. Jammet's cabin sits away from the riverbank in a patch of weeds that passes for a garden. The unpeeled log walls have faded over the years until the whole thing looks gray and woolly, more like a living growth than a building. It is something from a bygone age: the door is buckskin stretched over a wooden frame, the windows glazed with oiled parchment. In winter he must freeze. It's not a place where the women of Dove River often call, and I haven't been here myself for months, but right now I have run out of places to look. There is no smoke signal of life inside, but the door stands ajar; the buckskin stained from earthy hands. I call out, then knock on the wall. There is no reply, so I peer inside, and when my eyes have adjusted to the dimness I see Jammet, at home and, true to form, asleep on his bed at this time in the morning. I nearly walk away then, thinking there is no point waking him, but frustration makes me persevere. I haven't come all this way for nothing. "Mr. Jammet?" I start off, sounding, to my mind, irritatingly bright. "Mr. Jammet, I am sorry to disturb you, but I must ask..." Laurent Jammet sleeps peacefully. Around his neck is the red neckerchief he wears for hunting, so that other hunters will not mistake him for a bear and shoot him. One foot protrudes off the side of the bed, in a dirty sock. His red neckerchief is on the table...I have grasped the side of the door. Suddenly, from being normal, everything has changed completely: flies hover around their late autumn feast; the red neckerchief is not around his neck, it cannot be, because it is on the table, and that means... "Oh," I say, and the sound shocks me in the silent cabin. "No." I cling on to the door, trying not to run away, although I realize a second later I couldn't move if my life depended on it. The redness around his neck has leaked into the mattress from a gash. A gash. I'm panting, as though I've been running. The door frame is the most important thing in the world right now. Without it, I don't know what I would do. The neckerchief has not done its duty. It has failed to prevent his untimely death. I don't pretend to be particularly brave, and, in fact, long ago gave up the notion that I have any remarkable qualities, but I am surprised at the calmness with which I look around the cabin. My first thought is that Jammet has destroyed himself, but Jammet's hands are empty, and there is no sign of a weapon near him. One hand dangles off the side of the bed. It does not occur to me to be afraid. I know with absolute certainty that whoever did this is nowhere near -- the cabin proclaims its emptiness. Even the body on the bed is empty. There are no attributes to it now -- the cheerfulness and slovenliness and skill at shooting, the generosity and callousness -- they have all gone. There is one other thing I can't help but notice, as his face is turned slightly away from me. I don't want to see it, but it's there, and it confirms what I have already unwillingly accepted -- that among all the things in the world that can never be known, Laurent Jammet's fate is not one of them. This is no accident, nor is it self-destruction. He has been scalped. At length, although it is probably only a few seconds later, I pull the door closed behind me, and when I can't see him anymore, I feel better. Although for the rest of that day, and for days after, my right hand aches from the violence with which I gripped the door frame, as though I had been trying to knead the wood between my fingers, like dough.Copyright (c) 2006 by Stef Penney Excerpted from The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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