By Paul Carrier
Harry Woodyard is a young, happily married North
Carolina plantation owner and constable during the closing years of the
French and Indian War. As the conflict rages far to the north, life
seems quietly predictable in Craven County.
That changes when a peddler discovers that three members of the Campbell family — husband, wife and young son — have been murdered in their rural home, their lifeless bodies placed in strange positions by the killer. Only an infant has been spared, and left behind in its crib.
So begins The Constable’s Tale, Donald Smith’s satisfying and imaginative debut novel, which takes Woodyard from his home to the Plains of Abraham in Québec in 1759, as his search for the murderer broadens and he finds himself tracking what he believes is a killer with a larger agenda.
Craven County’s political establishment, including Judge Olaf McLeod and High Sheriff Randall Carruthers, seems poised to blame the killings on Comet Elijah, an elderly Tuscarora Indian from the area who disappeared for a time before the murders but has since resurfaced.
Elijah is arrested and jailed to await trial, despite the fact that Woodyard, a lifelong friend, is convinced of his innocence. Inspecting the scene of the crime, Woodyard finds a nautical chart of nearby Pamlico Sound and a brooch decorated with a Masonic symbol and a coded message, neither of which belonged to either the Campbells or Elijah.
Convinced that the brooch and the map were accidentally left behind by the killer, Woodyard soon finds himself ranging far afield in search of the brooch’s owner. As the story unfolds, he becomes convinced that his prey also is a spy for the French, which leads him to Québec shortly before British Gen. James Wolfe’s successful assault on that fortress city.
It is an action-packed journey, and in more ways than one. Woodyard survives two murder attempts. He encounters his onetime sweetheart, Maddie McLeod, who plans to marry the suspected spy. And he has a couple of intimate escapades with Jacqueline de Contrecoeur, a Frenchwoman living in America. Being, at heart, an honorable fellow, these dalliances leave him guilt-ridden because he dearly loves his wife, Toby, whom he left behind in North Carolina.
Donald Smith has set his novel in an interesting time period, when Americans, who were rapidly developing their own identity, nonetheless remained loyal to the British crown as they and the redcoats fought side by side to expel the French from North America.
The author also has created an intriguing protagonist in Woodyard, who spent far too much time with “brawlers and pranksters and wenchers” in his youth. Our hero is skilled in the use of the knife and the tomahawk (thanks to Elijah’s lessons), and adept at puzzling out clues that other officials either don’t see or are inclined to ignore.
Despite his checkered past, Woodyard hopes to move up in the world by impressing “ye People of Quality,” as he calls the local oligarchs in New Bern, N.C. So even as he finds himself traveling farther and farther north, Woodyard tries to adhere to an exhaustive (and sometimes baffling) list of 110 dos and don’ts spelled out in an etiquette guide titled Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior In Company and Conversation.
A different rule opens each chapter of the novel, which helps anchor readers in the time period. One such gem: “Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hastily. Before and after Drinking wipe your Lips breath not then or Ever with too Great a Noise, for it's uncivil.” Or this bit of advice, which Donald Trump obviously never came across: “Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.”
Once Woodyard works his way to Québec on the eve of the decisive battle of the war, he discovers that people are not always who -- or even what -- they seem. The reader shares Woodyard’s shock when a key character proves to be a remarkable chameleon, but Smith has even more in store, and another jaw-dropping secret is revealed in the closing pages. The Constable's Tale is an outstanding yarn, well-told, with plenty of twists and turns.
That changes when a peddler discovers that three members of the Campbell family — husband, wife and young son — have been murdered in their rural home, their lifeless bodies placed in strange positions by the killer. Only an infant has been spared, and left behind in its crib.
So begins The Constable’s Tale, Donald Smith’s satisfying and imaginative debut novel, which takes Woodyard from his home to the Plains of Abraham in Québec in 1759, as his search for the murderer broadens and he finds himself tracking what he believes is a killer with a larger agenda.
Craven County’s political establishment, including Judge Olaf McLeod and High Sheriff Randall Carruthers, seems poised to blame the killings on Comet Elijah, an elderly Tuscarora Indian from the area who disappeared for a time before the murders but has since resurfaced.
Elijah is arrested and jailed to await trial, despite the fact that Woodyard, a lifelong friend, is convinced of his innocence. Inspecting the scene of the crime, Woodyard finds a nautical chart of nearby Pamlico Sound and a brooch decorated with a Masonic symbol and a coded message, neither of which belonged to either the Campbells or Elijah.
Convinced that the brooch and the map were accidentally left behind by the killer, Woodyard soon finds himself ranging far afield in search of the brooch’s owner. As the story unfolds, he becomes convinced that his prey also is a spy for the French, which leads him to Québec shortly before British Gen. James Wolfe’s successful assault on that fortress city.
It is an action-packed journey, and in more ways than one. Woodyard survives two murder attempts. He encounters his onetime sweetheart, Maddie McLeod, who plans to marry the suspected spy. And he has a couple of intimate escapades with Jacqueline de Contrecoeur, a Frenchwoman living in America. Being, at heart, an honorable fellow, these dalliances leave him guilt-ridden because he dearly loves his wife, Toby, whom he left behind in North Carolina.
Donald Smith has set his novel in an interesting time period, when Americans, who were rapidly developing their own identity, nonetheless remained loyal to the British crown as they and the redcoats fought side by side to expel the French from North America.
The author also has created an intriguing protagonist in Woodyard, who spent far too much time with “brawlers and pranksters and wenchers” in his youth. Our hero is skilled in the use of the knife and the tomahawk (thanks to Elijah’s lessons), and adept at puzzling out clues that other officials either don’t see or are inclined to ignore.
Despite his checkered past, Woodyard hopes to move up in the world by impressing “ye People of Quality,” as he calls the local oligarchs in New Bern, N.C. So even as he finds himself traveling farther and farther north, Woodyard tries to adhere to an exhaustive (and sometimes baffling) list of 110 dos and don’ts spelled out in an etiquette guide titled Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior In Company and Conversation.
A different rule opens each chapter of the novel, which helps anchor readers in the time period. One such gem: “Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hastily. Before and after Drinking wipe your Lips breath not then or Ever with too Great a Noise, for it's uncivil.” Or this bit of advice, which Donald Trump obviously never came across: “Use no Reproachfull Language against any one neither Curse nor Revile.”
Once Woodyard works his way to Québec on the eve of the decisive battle of the war, he discovers that people are not always who -- or even what -- they seem. The reader shares Woodyard’s shock when a key character proves to be a remarkable chameleon, but Smith has even more in store, and another jaw-dropping secret is revealed in the closing pages. The Constable's Tale is an outstanding yarn, well-told, with plenty of twists and turns.
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