Perversely and remarkably, I started thinking about Sarah Waters’ FINGERSMITH not 10 pages into reading this book. Perversely, because I could not help but compare Waters’ book – which was shortlisted for both the Orange and Man Booker prizes for fiction and has received nothing but fawning adoration from gullible reviewers – with this debut genre novel by a screenwriter who is unlikely to receive such love. And remarkably, because there are significant parallels between the two books.

And without fail, Stef Penney’s THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES comes out on top each and every time. This is the book that the literary reviewers should be cooing over – the one that is deserving of those heady rewards of money and fame.

Where Waters’ book quickly descends into a louche and prurient degradation of character, filled with frustrating and unrealistic behaviors, Penney manages to explore the difficult emotional terrain of mixed race and homoerotic relationships with a quality one rarely sees nowadays: subtlety. And grace. This is an astonishing and beautiful book – a tremendous accomplishment for a first-time novelist.

Set in the 1860s in northern frontier Canada, the tiny settlement of Caulfield is about to have its moorings slip. A trapper is brutally murdered and scalped in his cabin within town. At the same time, a teenager named Francis Ross goes missing. Representatives of the Hudson Bay Company dither between choosing to place the blame on any handy native Indian roaming the area, or perhaps blaming it on the outcast boy Ross. This is the core mystery, and from here, the intrigues and character interactions grow and evolve so much that none of the characters ever will be the same.

It is characterization at which Penney truly excels. Every character – and I mean every single character but one – is beautifully drawn, showing their fears, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, how they view their own place in Caulfield society and how they may or may not want that to change. She does this so economically, it’s almost unnoticeable, but that deeply reflective internalization of emotion and its effect on her characters is another similarity this book has with Sarah Waters’ work. Both authors make you care deeply about their characters, but Penney makes you believe in them as well.

Her weaving of immigrants’ and natives’ stories alike into a coherent whole, into an epic tale of facing the harsh realities of a northern Canadian winter, her respect for her own characters and how they would think and react in situations – all of this adds up to a brilliant work that is as exciting and action-packed as it is thoughtful and insightful. If you are a mystery lover, and you prefer an age before the minutiae of forensic investigation or computer crimes, then this is a must purchase. It is the most tender, most human mystery I have read in quite some time. –Mark Rose

Buy it at Amazon.