“Lyrical in both its beauty and its horror, The Tinsmith reveals a writer at the height of his powers. From the battlefields of the American Civil War to the salmon canning wars in British Columbia, Bowling creates vivid worlds that move us. In John Dare — the heir to both of these conflicts — we meet a character of great moral complexity, a man trying to come to grips with the mystery at the heart of his identity. Bowling’s vision is grand, fierce, and bloody.” — 2012 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury (Lynn Coady, Esi Edugyan, and Drew Hayden Taylor)