I'm only eight chapters deep into this surprising Amazon find, but have already concluded it is very much worth sharing.
Constable La Marr of the Royal Mounted Police took no chances. A murder had been committed two days before at Armistice, almost within the shadow of the police post. He had not a doubt that the Inuit approaching was his culprit. He wondered if the slogan of the Mounted applied in case one had to deal with an insane native. It would be easy to fire upon the oncomer, undoubtedly unaware of the nearness of a Nemesis. But the training at the Regina school of police that a "Mountie" never fires first is strict. Constable La Marr could not, and did not, take a pot shot even with the intent only to wound the flounderer. This decision, as he came to find out, was wise, for the murder was far from solved.It's surprising in that most of my search results for "Northerns" involve sappy romance novels, and a helping of homo-erotica. Neither appeals to me a great deal. So landing a hundred-year-old story that I had not come across before was unexpected.
Many Mountie adventures are more about the chase to apprehend a criminal, rather than the work to determine who committed the crime (at least those that I've located). As the teaser above reveals, in this story, the actual perpetrator of the murder may not be as clear as it initially appeared, so a little more investigative work is needed.
While La Marr is featured in the caption above, at least to the extent that I've read the story so far, he is not actually its primary protagonist. That honour belongs to Staff-Sergeant Russell Seymour, a veteran with rookie La Marr as his only only law-enforcing subordinate.
Naturally, it isn't long until they are unexpectedly joined by a young, beautiful young woman. It seems no Mountie story is complete without one.
The story was written in 1924. You can sample it, or read it in its entirety, here. Perhaps I'm premature in giving it a high grade, but so far so good.
