Barkerville Mystery

In the first novel in the Barkerville Mystery series, protagonist Ted MacIntosh tries to unravel a suspicious murder with possible fatal consequences. lt's summer in 1866 in the Cariboo gold fields, and a man has disappeared. Young Ted learns from the local barber, Moses, that his friend Charles, who was travelling to the gold fields, has failed to arrive. And a forbidding stranger named James Barry has arrived in town wearing a gold nugget pin that belonged to the missing man. What could have happened to him? Was James Barry responsible for his disappearance? Moses and Ted are suspicious – but they're also afraid for their own safety. Slowly, with several adventures and close calls, they unravel the story of a cruel murder. But have they identified the right criminal? Shortlisted for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, based on true events, and set against the exciting backdrop of the Gold Rush era, Moses, Me, and Murder offers a captivating tale of betrayal, thievery, and redemption.

Ann Walsh's sequel to Moses, Me and Murder (Pacific Educational Press) continues the adventures of Ted, now 14. Still tormented by the ghost of murderer James Barry, Ted apprentices to the eccentric doctor J.B. Wilkinson, whose dependency on opium for his patients and for his own demons reveals a past intertwined with the life and death of an enigmatic woman named Sophia Cameron.

In By the Skin of His Teeth, 17-year-old Ted MacIntosh, whom author Ann Walsh showcased earlier in Moses, Me and Murder and The Doctor's Apprentice, befriends a young Chinese boy despite the intense prejudice seething in the frontier town. Ted suffers intimidation and violence at the hands of the cruel, arrogant Tremblay and his cronies, but with courage and conviction the young man stands up for what he believes and defends his Chinese friend.

Presenting the three titles in the acclaimed Barkerville mystery series. This series based in 1860's British Columbia focuses on strange events in the life of teenager Ted MacIntosh. In Moses, Me, and Murder, Ted gets caught up in the mystery of a disappearance and murder in the gold fields. In The Doctor's Apprentice, Ted is apprenticed to an eccentric doctor who has dark secrets. In the concluding By the Skin of His Teeth, Ted befriends a young Chinese boy despite the intense prejudice seething in the frontier town. Exciting and entertaining, these novels present a unique view on life on the frontier.