In 1903, the wilds of Montana and Alberta, Canada, and the frozen peaks of the Rockies challenged the most adventurous and experienced explorers. Only someone desperate, perhaps even mad, would dare consider them a viable escape route, but then Mary Boulton, most often referred to in Gil Adamson's suspenseful debut, The Outlander, as "the widow," is surely both.
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Throughout her travels the widow suffers from frightening delusions, as well as the ever-present threats of starvation and frostbite, but she presses onward and upward, making her way through treacherous mountain passes, dodging wolves, deadly arrows and capture. A host of interesting characters cross her erratic path, providing shelter, company or simply an opportunity to steal provisions, and her encounters with a notorious mountain man known as the Ridgerunner are especially compelling.
As the widow's wilderness knowledge and competence improves, so does her mental condition, and by the time she arrives in Frank, a mining town in southwest Alberta, she's nearly got a grip on her sanity, becoming a fixture in town with the aid of the pugilistic Reverend and a dwarf shopkeeper. But nothing will stop her husband's brothers, and soon after the famous Frank Slide, when 74 million tons of mountain crashed to the valley below, they manage to catch up to her.
The only disappointment in The Outlander is the absence of the promise of a sequel. Adamson's debut novel (following a book of poetry and short story collection) is fast-paced, richly plotted and utterly gripping, and readers will feel as breathless as Mary as they follow her frantic dash across the snow-bound mountains. Combining the best escape-over-hazardous-terrain action from novels like Cold Mountain with moody, literary prose makes this a fresh and welcome update to the historic novel genre.
Kristy Kiernan writes from South Florida and determinedly avoids all snowy mountains.
Reprinted with permission from BookPage
