The Bastard of Fort Stikine: The Hudson's Bay Company and the Murder of John McLoughlin Jr.

Komar, a forensic anthropologist who has investigated human rights violations for the United Nations, uses archival research and forensic tools to reinvestigate and get to the truth of a murder 170 years after it was committed. In April of 1842, chief trader John McLoughlin Jr. was assassinated by his own crew of workers at their Hudson's Bay Company post on the Pacific Northwest coast of Canada. The men were known to have disliked McLoughlin and some had threatened to kill him, but the company's governor, Sir George Simpson, relied on their accounts of the incident to conclude that the murder was a matter of self-defense against McLoughlin's drunken rampages. Though the company closed the books on the matter without a trial, McLoughlin's father never relented in his efforts to disprove Simpson's version of the facts. Komar paints vivid pictures of life in rugged outposts and circles of power in the company, which once owned much of the territory that became modern Canada. Skillfully weaving together source material with her own insightful and very readable prose, Komar tells a story that will intrigue both historians and mystery lovers. Carolyn Swayze, Carolyn Swayze Literary Agency. (May)