Native American Peoples - Fiction & Literature, Historical Figures - Fiction, Police Stories, Other Mystery Categories, Character Types - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Frobisher's Savage

Name: Frobisher's Savage
Author: Leonard Tourney
ISBN: 9780312114374

by Leonard Tourney

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Overview

In 1576, Sir Martin Frobisher made the first of three voyages in search of a Northwest Passage. He got as far as Canada, and brought back to England two "proofs" that he had reached Cathay: some black stones that he claimed contained gold, and an Eskimo. Using this factual basis, Leonard Tourney takes his Elizabethan mystery series to a higher level with a compelling story about the nature of blind prejudice. Frobisher's Eskimo is given the name "Adam Nemo" and is set down on the estate of a wealthy landowner as a servant. He learns the strange language of his captors, he performs his duties more than conscientiously, and he keeps to himself. And then everything changes. Visiting his only friend on a nearby farm, a deaf and mute youth named Nicholas, he finds the boy cowering in a corner and everywhere signs of a bloody massacre. When the townsmen whom Adam summons arrive, they discover the mutilated bodies of the farmer, his wife, and their two youngest children in the well. Merchant Matthew Stock tries to counteract the town's growing hysteria, which fastens itself upon those they consider strangers - the "savage" and the "idiot." Matthew and his forthright wife Joan are firmly convinced of the pair's innocence, and they are determined that the rule of law shall prevail. There is more than one hair-raising episode, and a breathless pursuit through a snowstorm, before Joan Stock finally unearths the evidence to identify the real murderer.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In 1576, Elizabethan explorerer Martin Frobisher captured a ``round-faced, squinty-eyed, foul-smelling'' savage on the icy coast of Greenland and took him back to England, naming him Adam Nemo. Twenty years later, Adam is a servant on a Chelmsford estate bordering the prosperous farm of John Crookback, father of his only friend, deaf, dumb and perhaps half-witted Nicholas Crookback. One Sunday, Adam discovers the stabbed bodies of John, his wife and two other children stuffed down a well. He and Nicholas quickly become suspects. Custody of the defenseless friends is entrusted to mild-mannered clothier Matthew Stock and his staunch wife, Joan. Although Joan's feminism may be a bit ahead of her time, Tourney offers his usual well-researched historical background in this, the eighth, Stock mystery, following Witness of Bones. As Crookback's two grown daughters howl for vengeance, the discovery of a letter from a London goldsmith sets the Stocks on an investigation that almosts costs Matthew his life. Fraud, vigilantes and a chase by a posse in a snowstorm move the story along smartly. (Oct.)

Library Journal

Tourney, who favors the Elizabethan era as a source of inspiration, adds another title to his Joan and Matthew Stock series. As acting constable of Chelmsford, clothier Stock oversees the aftermath of the murder of a wealthy farm family from outside of town. Two greedy daughters blame the murder on their deaf-mute half brother-who inherits-and his friend, a native brought to England by the explorer Frobisher years previously. Comfortable with the historical territory and details of the time, Tourney (Witness of Bones, Ballantine, 1993) relays his tale with practiced ease.