Thrilling ... Expertly paced ... Predictably, the novel’s twin undercurrents of pride and corruption surface with fatal consequences, and the lively narrative ends as fate demands that it must. Murder is avenged and avarice thwarted in a novel that verges on allegory and yet transports us to a time and place as solid as the ill-fated rock that brings only disaster.
McGuire achieves a cinematic intimacy by writing the past in the present tense ... Passages of dialogue and interior monologue, rendered in contemporary language, function as soliloquies, revealing the characters’ contrasting natures.
Little mirth or mercy ... Feels antiquated ... McGuire’s men are granted room to ponder grand questions of faith, honour and ambition, how far a conscience can be bent; his women fret about marital harmony and tend to the fire ... Heavy on research, light on imagination ... Bleak and bloody ... A hyper-masculine melodrama, fuelled by grievance and petty tyrannies. If only he had something – anything – interesting to say about women.
Moves at a propulsive lick, its bloody meat marbled with cruelty and violence ... Inside his characters’ heads, however, McGuire moves with less confidence. Backstories provide context but little complexity or depth ... By emphasising commonalities, in scrupulously eradicating deep cultural difference, McGuire diminishes the power of the four Dene guides to transform the narrative and begs the very question he sought to duck about whether their story was really ever his to tell.
McGuire brilliantly portrays the vicissitudes of human nature as pride and greed lead to treachery, jealousy, and deceit, weaving a trenchant tale of man’s inhumanity to man. The prose is both poetic and visceral, while the descriptions of the land and traditions are rich in period detail. A resplendent and masterful tale.
Readers who appreciate stories that prioritize rich character studies over sensationalized drama will be rewarded by this mesmerizing tale that explores greed, the primal instinct to survive, and human connection.
