Deadly Innocent: Tragedy on the Trail to Gold

by Bill Gallaher

Best-selling chronicler of the gold rush Bill Gallaher now brings us the compelling story of the Rennie brothers. Lured by dreams of wealth and a better life, William, Gilbert and Thomas Rennie set out for the Cariboo goldfields in the spring of 1862. But because of their late departure, they encountered unimaginable consequences. They crossed the prairies in good order with the famous Father Lacombe and continued along the well-marked trail of the Overlanders into the mountains. But after that, nothing went according to plan. Deadly Innocent captures the essence of this drama in its riveting account of love, hope and the limits of human endurance. The third of Bill Gallahers chronicles of the Cariboo gold rush, Deadly Innocent is a captivating addition to his treasure trove of stories about the gold rush and fascinating characters from B.C.s past.

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2004

Reviews

[Mitchell Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to get into a reflective state reading a book about what happened near where you live, more than a century and a half prior, when there wasn't yet much civilization around. I saw the cannibalism part coming very early into the book, but it was still a shock once it finally came. It was a bit of a slog to get through for a while, when all of the characters were barely surviving or in the middle of perishing so that's why I took a star away, but I still recognize that was just reality, not really any way around it. The days seemed to indeed skip quicker in that time, with less details given (as there wasn't a lot to update on), but it was still a rough part. This book certainly fills you with sorrow at times. I was happy that what felt like the protagonist survived at the end, although it's too bad that the survivors aren't portrayed as really being close anymore in the end. The gold rush certainly took its toll on some folks.