Her interaction with her captors is poignant as she struggles to make herself understood. Told from a variety of viewpoints, the story centres around the capture of a young Beothuk woman. Michael Crummey brings all these elements together in this, his first novel. The English settlers, some of who are transported criminals, face many hardships eking out a living trapping and fishing. As the officer attempts to uncover what really happened on the Red Indians' lake, the delicate web of obligation and debt that holds together the Peyton household, and the community of settlers on the northeast shore, slowly unravels.Īn enthralling story of great passion and suspense, vividly set in the stark Newfoundland landscape and driven by an extraordinary cast of characters, River Thieves captures both the vast sweep of history and the intimate lives of those caught in its wake.River Thieves is a tale of early 19th century Newfoundland, when the native Beothuk still roamed in small groups. Years later, when a second expedition to the Beothuks' winter camp mounted by the Peytons leads to the kidnapping of an Indian woman and the murder of her husband, Buchan returns to investigate. When Buchan's peace expedition into 'Indian country' goes awry, the rift between father and son deepens and begins to divide those closest to them. Cassie, the fiercely self-reliant and secretive woman who keeps the family house, walks a precarious line of her own between the unspoken but obvious hopes of the younger Peyton, her loyalty to John Senior and a steadfast refusal to compromise her independence. His closest ally, John Peyton Jr., maintains an uneasy balance between duty to his father-a domineering patriarch with a reputation as a ruthless persecutor of the Beothuk-and his troubled conscience.

When Buchan approaches the area's most influential white settlers, the Peytons, for advice and assistance, he enters a shadowy world of allegiances and old grudges that he can only dimly apprehend.

Told in elegant, sensual prose, River Thieves is a richly imagined story about love, loss and the heartbreaking compromises-both personal and political-that undermine lives.Īt the turn of the nineteenth century, naval officer David Buchan arrives in the Bay of Exploits with orders to establish contact with the Beothuk or 'Red Indians,' the aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland facing extinction. In a masterful debut, award-winning poet and short fiction writer Michael Crummey crafts a haunting tale of startling power.

River Thieves by Michael Crummey