The Tinsmith

This vivid and passionate novel opens with the American Civil War, where after the battle of Antietam, we're told that men 'moved among the dead and wounded slowly as wasps over rotted fruit'; it's such writing that makes Tim Bowling's novel memorable—that, and its range, for it ends nineteen years later in western Canada, with two of the major characters. Altogether, a story of impressive scope, and bristling with action. —Jack Matthews, author of The Gambler's Nephew

Bowling is a remarkable writer. The Tinsmith is well-served by meticulous research which serves to provide believable settings for the action of this novel. From the battlefields and the cast of characters found there—embalmers, soldiers (from both sides), civilians who came to sightsee, the ladies holding handkerchiefs over their mouths, the photographers who set up their darkroom wagons and provided first-hand visual accounts of the carnage—to the fogs of the Fraser River, he takes the reader into the heart of the dark drama unfolding in these pages. —Harbour Spiel

The most interesting sections of The Tinsmith, which take place during a turf war among the upstart salmon canneries in frontier-era British Columbia, give the book a heart that's undeniably Canadian . . . there's something wonderful about the way these ruthless cannery owners give a little added mythological heft to Canada's west coast. —Edmonton Journal