First of all, the reader for this audioversion was terrible. Every citation from an Irish sounding name, even if American, was read with a terrible Irish brogue. All women were read as high and breathy. Totally obnoxious.
Maybe it's just that the subject didn't interest me as much as I thought it would, but I found this book to be speculative at best and pure conjecture at worst. If there are really so few facts about his life, maybe the world doesn't need yet another book aabout him. All of the insight into his feelings didn't do much for me.

This was the Costa Book of the Year (the former Whitbread Book Award), and it should win even more awards than that. Daringly, the author sets her work in Canada's frigid northern territory in the 19th century. As winter closes in on tiny Dove River, Mrs. Ross stumbles into the cabin of mysterious neighbor Laurent Jammet and finds him murdered. Distressingly, her adopted son Francis, something of an outsider himself, disappears at the same time. Francis is conveniently suspected of the deed, and the Company (which runs just about everything in this neck of the woods) sends Donald Moody to investigate. New to Canada, Donald struggles to find his way among the hardened settlers. Then another man, clearly native, is spotted in Jammet's cabin, arrested and beaten, and mysteriously released. In the ensuing mayhem, no one seems to have considered Mrs. Ross's devotion and resilience—she's gone to find her son. Plot summary cannot do justice to this complex and engrossing tale of human passion and folly, highlighted by the rigors of a wilderness being systematically despoiled. The characters are distinctive, their portraits startling and incisive, and the writing is fluid and beautifully detailed.

This was a novel that I could not put down and the characters were so beautifully depicted that I know each of them personally! A wonderful book and this is only this author's first novel. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. A must read to any reader.