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By the Skin of his Teeth
Murder in Barkerville
It's November of 1870, two years after a great fire destroyed most of the town, and Barkerville has rebuilt itself. Although many miners have left for the winter, the place is thriving with shops, restaurants and a busy Christmas social season of sleigh rides, dancing and carolling with the Glee Club.
Young Ted MacIntosh, now seventeen and working in his father's carpentry shop, has ignored the prevailing racist attitudes towards the Chinese, referred to as "Celestials,"; and befriended a young Chinese boy. Then a Chinese man named Ah Mow is stabbed to death on the steps of his Barkerville restaurant.
A violent white man named Henri Tremblay is charged with the murder. It looks like a simple case until witnesses are being threatened by Tremblay and his crew to substantially change their testimonies between the inquest and the trial.
In Ann Walsh's third volume in her Barkerville Mystery series, By the Skin of His Teeth (Beach Holme, $9.95), idealistic and headstrong Ted MacIntosh, who first appeared in Moses, Me and Murder and then again in The Doctor's Apprentice, knows he will endanger himself and his Chinese friends if he insists on telling the truth.
When the all-white jury finds the accused is not guilty, the judge, affronted by the verdict, publicly comments on the defendant's narrow escape from justice. Walsh, whose books have all received the Children's Book Centre Our Choice Award, couldn't find evidence to support her theory that witnesses must have been threatened and beaten to make them change their stories, but her latest story is otherwise based on actual events. 0-88878-448-1
BCBW 2005
It's November of 1870, two years after a great fire destroyed most of the town, and Barkerville has rebuilt itself. Although many miners have left for the winter, the place is thriving with shops, restaurants and a busy Christmas social season of sleigh rides, dancing and carolling with the Glee Club.
Young Ted MacIntosh, now seventeen and working in his father's carpentry shop, has ignored the prevailing racist attitudes towards the Chinese, referred to as "Celestials,"; and befriended a young Chinese boy. Then a Chinese man named Ah Mow is stabbed to death on the steps of his Barkerville restaurant.
A violent white man named Henri Tremblay is charged with the murder. It looks like a simple case until witnesses are being threatened by Tremblay and his crew to substantially change their testimonies between the inquest and the trial.
In Ann Walsh's third volume in her Barkerville Mystery series, By the Skin of His Teeth (Beach Holme, $9.95), idealistic and headstrong Ted MacIntosh, who first appeared in Moses, Me and Murder and then again in The Doctor's Apprentice, knows he will endanger himself and his Chinese friends if he insists on telling the truth.
When the all-white jury finds the accused is not guilty, the judge, affronted by the verdict, publicly comments on the defendant's narrow escape from justice. Walsh, whose books have all received the Children's Book Centre Our Choice Award, couldn't find evidence to support her theory that witnesses must have been threatened and beaten to make them change their stories, but her latest story is otherwise based on actual events. 0-88878-448-1
BCBW 2005
Submitted on January 18, 2005 in By David.
