I love the Panther, and I love that the heroine is a plain-looking, initially immature girl who grows up and shows her true potential for greatness. Much more well-rounded a character than in most of the People books (and I don't mean anatomically!). Most of the characters here are less two-dimensional, in fact, than in a lot of the Gear's later books. Nobody is flat-out evil, not even Copper Thunder. While the Panther sometimes comes off sounding a little too didactic and like some mind-reading master of all human psychology, he overall is a lot of fun to follow.

this is a decsent gear book it is a murder mistry. the problem with it is while investegating the murder the old dreamer does the same thing over and over every day but somehow still finds out how did it. but there is a big surprise at the very end that make it a good read.

This story took place around the Chesapeake Bay which I grew up around so the location of the story intrigued my curiousity. I have read all of the Gear's books in order and I have watched their artistic historical stories unfold and grow in so many ways. Their first couple of stories seemed to be repetitive but beginning with the 3rd of the series the Gear's have found so many ways to manipulate the story into twists and turns that leaves any reader fascinated and wanting more. It weaves some of the older stories into their current stories and this one was just as great. I had never suspected the ending and I was astonished at how well the story came together. The research is always breathtaking as well and I will continue to be a faithful Gear's reader.

It seems like in every single volume of the "First Americans" series the Gears write, a new genre is explored. In one book it is a quest, in another the tale is one of requested intervention of supernatural forces, still another is a cautionary fable concerning ecology. And in this case, it is a very fine murder mystery. This novel is set around the Chesapeake Bay region roughly a half-dozen generations before Columbus's voyage. It covers the culture of the Algonquians down to the smallest detail and does a fine job of contrasting their value system to that of other aboriginal groups (such as the more pastoral southeastern tribes) and also with showing us a people who dwelled in a region of such remarkable natural plenty that life could be sustained with very little effort.

In this bounteous landscape a murder has been committed. A beautiful teenaged daughter of a powerful chieftain has been found beaten to death in the forest near her home. She had sneaked out in the night for a rendezvous of some sort and never made it back. Amid the descriptions of Algonquin life, funerary and religious rites and crime and punishment, the story weaves outward, until a hermit-like old man, much feared and respected by the villagers, is welcomed into their midst to use his towering intellect to solve the murder of the young woman and prevent the catastrophic consequences her death might have on her people's immediate future.

This is one of the two best books in the First Americans series and even devoid the bonus of its wealth of information on tribal life, it is a spectacular mystery that remains unsolved to the very end of this novel's pages.

How delicious it is to discover a new series by great authors! I picked this book up by chance and I loved it.

The Gears have written an entire series of books, each one of which is a novel set among a different pre-historic culture in North America.

The Gears do an exceptional job at researching and presenting a culture. The archaeological details they provide give their story an authenticity that feels very real. "The People of the Mist" is set around 1300 A.D. in the Chesapeake Bay area. Unlike many other novels set in prehistoric times, this book neither looks down on the characters as "primitive," nor does it glamorize the characters as being unrealistically heroic or noble. Instead, these are very real people caught up in the same political and survival problems as people today, but in a different setting. Interspersed throughout the novel are interesting tidbits on how the people of these coastal villages hunted, cooked, and maintained family and clan relationships.

Set against this fascinating background, the book presents a well thought out murder mystery that has all the twists and deadends you could wish for.

I could hardly put this book down, and spent several late nights and overly-long lunch hours reading it as quickly as I could.

Excuse me while I get back onto Amazon and find and buy all of the rest of the books!