Description:
When Jessica Ross, a young English historian, learns that her sister Maddie, a free-spirited young woman who's been working on an archaeological dig in northern Maine, has been killed by what appears to be a marauding bear, her first concern is for Freya, Maddie's 9-year-old daughter. Sure enough, when Jessica arrives at the site of the slaying, she finds her badly traumatized niece overcome by fear as well as grief, responsive only to the ministrations of a taciturn Souriquois woman. The woman may in fact be the child's only other living relative, through a kinship to Jessica and Maddie's dead mother, whose Native American heritage has always been shrouded in mystery. Rumors of shape shifters, shamans, and Native American bear cults shroud the truth about Maddie's death. Police inspector Michael Calhoun, lately returned to his childhood home, believes it may be connected to a 300-year-old colonial massacre, evidence of which has surfaced at the dig with the discovery of remains bearing wounds remarkably similar to Maddie's. The love story between Jessica and Calhoun takes second place to the murder mystery, but both are handled with skillful writing and strong atmospherics that surpass the genre. Paul Bryers's writing style is spare and controlled, his characters complex and interesting, and the result is a tautly suspenseful story with supernatural overtones and enough of a chill to keep the reader shivering after the final page is turned. --Jane Adams
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