The Reading Group Reads...
The Tenderness of Wolves
A small but enthusiastic group gathered for our August meeting to discuss
'The Tenderness of Wolves' by Stef Penney, recent winner of the Costa
Prize for a first novel.
The year is 1867 and the small, isolated settlement of Dove River in Canada is witness to a brutal murder; Laurent Jammet, a trapper, trader and loner is found dead by his neighbour and the book's main character, Mrs Ross, whose son, Francis, simultaneously disappears. There follows an emotional roller-coaster of events in the search for the killer as a cloud of suspicion hangs over the small town. Men from the Hudson Bay Company come to investigate the murder and there begins a series of evocative journeys through the Canadian wilderness in winter. The descriptive writing makes the intense cold and isolation almost palpable and the need to continue reading becomes compulsive. It is during their journeyings that the true nature of many of the characters is revealed and several mysteries posed during the story are answered within it's violent conclusion. In spite of certain questions remaining we agreed that we found this to be an entertaining and rewarding novel - a thoroughly 'good read'.
The next meeting of the Reading Group will be on Wednesday 3 October at Janet Cooper's house when 'After You'd Gone' by Maggie O'Farrell will be discussed. Future chosen books are;
- 7 November: The Business by Iain Banks
- 5 December: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
- January :The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers