[Joan & Matthew Stock 08] • Frobisher's Savage

In 1576, Sir Martin Frobisher made the first of three voyages in search of a Northwest Passage. He got as far as Canada, and brought back to England two "proofs" that he had reached Cathay: some black stones that he claimed contained gold, and an Eskimo. Using this factual basis, Leonard Tourney takes his Elizabethan mystery series to a higher level with a compelling story about the nature of blind prejudice. Frobisher's Eskimo is given the name "Adam Nemo" and is set down on the estate of a wealthy landowner as a servant. He learns the strange language of his captors, he performs his duties more than conscientiously, and he keeps to himself. And then everything changes. Visiting his only friend on a nearby farm, a deaf and mute youth named Nicholas, he finds the boy cowering in a corner and everywhere signs of a bloody massacre. When the townsmen whom Adam summons arrive, they discover the mutilated bodies of the farmer, his wife, and their two youngest children in the well. Merchant Matthew Stock tries to counteract the town's growing hysteria, which fastens itself upon those they consider strangers - the "savage" and the "idiot." Matthew and his forthright wife Joan are firmly convinced of the pair's innocence, and they are determined that the rule of law shall prevail. There is more than one hair-raising episode, and a breathless pursuit through a snowstorm, before Joan Stock finally unearths the evidence to identify the real murderer.