- 352 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
"An impressive first novel" of a crisis between natives and colonists in Newfoundland, based on historical events ( Seattle Post-Intelligencer ). In 1810, David Buchan, a naval officer, arrives in the Bay of Exploits with orders to establish contact with the Beothuk, or "Red Indians, " the aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland, who are facing extinction. When Buchan approaches the area's most influential white settlers, the Peytons, for advice and assistance, he enters a shadowy world of allegiances and old grudges that he can only dimly apprehend. His closest ally, John Peyton Jr., maintains an uneasy balance between duty to his fatherâa domineering patriarch with a reputation as a ruthless persecutor of the Beothukâand his troubled conscience. Cassie, the fiercely self-reliant and secretive woman who keeps the family house, walks a precarious line of her own between the unspoken but obvious hopes of the younger Peyton, her loyalty to John Senior, and a steadfast refusal to compromise her independence. When Buchan's peace expedition into "Indian country" goes awry, the rift between father and son deepens and begins to divide those closest to them. Years later, when a second expedition to the Beothuk's winter camp mounted by the Peytons leads to the kidnapping of an Indian woman and the murder of her husband, Buchan returns to investigate. As the officer attempts to uncover what really happened at the Red Indian's lake, the delicate web of obligation and debt that holds together the Peyton householdâand the community of settlers on the northeastern shoreâslowly unravels. The tragedy of miscommunication and loss among these colonists living in a harsh environment in a crude, violent age prefigures and in some sense is seen as the cause of the more profound loss, that of an entire people. An enthralling story of great passion and suspense, vividly set in the stark Newfoundland landscape and driven by an extraordinary cast of characters, River Thieves captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of those caught in its wake.
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Table of contents
- Title Page
- Contents
- Copyright
- Epigraph
- Introduction
- The Lake
- Part 1
- The Face of a Robberâs Horse
- The River Exploits
- Part 2
- Other Losses
- The Lake
- Investigations
- Part 3
- The Losing of the Moon
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- A Note on the Beothuk
- About the Author