The Tenderness of Wolves

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award 2006

1867, Canada: as winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a 17-year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man’s cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson’s Bay Company men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime or exploit it?

One-by-one the assembled searchers set out from Dove River, pursuing the tracks across a desolate landscape home only to wild animals, madmen and fugitives, variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for 17 years, a Native American culture, and a fortune in stolen furs 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 humour into a story that is both panoramic historical romance and exhilarating thriller. Now reissued in an attractive new livery, The Tenderness of Wolves is one of the most widely liked and admired novels of the previous decade.