“A remarkable first novel, full of verve, beautifully written, and with all the panache of a great adventure.”
—Michael Ondaatje

In 1903 a mysterious young woman flees alone across the West, one heart-pounding step ahead of the law. At 19, Mary Boulton has just become a widow—and her husband’s killer. As bloodhounds track her frantic race toward the mountains, she is tormented by the knowledge that

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1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, an isolated settlement in Canada's Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. But soon she makes another discovery: her son has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect. A variety of outsiders are drawn to the crime and to...