Minds of Winter
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3.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $3.99
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
A finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Minds of Winter is a mesmerizing novel about the chance meeting of two present-day travellers who expose one of the most perplexing mysteries in the history of Arctic exploration.
Fay Morgan and Nelson Nilsson have each arrived in Inuvik, Canada, about 120 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Both are in search of answers about a family member: Nelson for his estranged older brother, and Fay for her vanished grandfather. Driving Fay into town from the airport on a freezing January night, Nelson reveals a folder left behind by his brother. An image catches Fay’s eye: a clock she has seen before. Soon Fay and Nelson realize that their relatives have an extraordinary and historic connection — a secret share in one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of polar expedition. This is the riddle of the “Arnold 294” chronometer, which reappeared in Britain more than a hundred years after it was lost in the Arctic with the ships and men of Sir John Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition. The secret history of this elusive timepiece, Fay and Nelson will discover, ties them and their families to a journey that echoes across two centuries.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Minds of Winter brilliantly weaves a confounding real-life mystery into a meticulously researched, time-hopping yarn. The story starts with an ill-fated 1845 polar expedition; the questions surrounding that disaster bleed into a present-day family mystery involving bereaved wanderer Nelson Nilsson and Englishwoman Fay Morgan, whose paths cross against the blustery backdrop of the Canadian Northwest. Ed O’Loughlin unfolds his tale about parallel quests for truth with fastidious detail, delicate storytelling, and richly evocative scenes. This inventive novel is an exceptional read, packed with raw emotion and fully realized characters.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The third novel by O'Loughlin (Not Untrue and Not Unkind) is a complex tale of historical intrigue about 19th-century polar explorers, the strange disappearance of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition in 1845, and the unexpected discovery of key evidence relating to the disappearance in 2009. When a chronometer issued to Franklin shows up in London 150 years after the expedition crudely disguised as a carriage clock, speculation about the fate of Franklin and his 129 men is reignited. In Canada's Northwest Territory, drifter Nelson Nilsson searches for his missing brother, Bert, but meets a British woman, Fay Morgan, who is researching her grandfather's past. Unwilling allies, Nelson and Fay look through Bert's papers, discovering unlikely connections between their own searches and Franklin's fate, but neither trusts the other and secrets remain hidden. O'Loughlin uses frequent historical flashbacks to trace the chronometer's passage among polar explorers, from Franklin, Joseph Bellot, and Elisha Kane to Cecil Meares and Roald Amundsen, without clearly defining the chronometer's provenance. Nelson and Fay's investigation is further clouded by Bert's apparent obsession with the real identity of Canada's infamous cop killer Albert Johnson, "the Mad Trapper of Rat River," and the World War II spy activities of Fay's grandfather. The historical depictions of polar explorers the men, conditions, and horrible fates are accurate and stunning.
