Frenchmen and Long Knives

I’ll admit, I went into *Frenchmen and Long Knives* expecting another *Last of the Mohicans* retread—noble savages, dashing frontiersmen, the usual. What I got instead was a story that feels like it was carved out of the wilderness with a dull axe: uneven in places, but all the more gripping for its roughness. Pierre Grimard isn’t a hero; he’s a survivor, and Baggett refuses to sand down his edges. The novel’s strength lies in its unflinching look at the moral compromises of colonial life—Pierre’s dealings with Native tribes aren’t idealized or vilified, but presented with a clarity that forces you to sit with the discomfort. That said, the middle act drags a bit with repetitive trade negotiations, and I wished Baggett had trusted his readers to infer some of the cultural tensions instead of spelling them out in dialogue. Zach NeSmith’s performance is a masterclass in restraint. He doesn’t *act* so much as *inhabit* Pierre, letting the character’s weariness and quiet determination seep into every line. His French pronunciation is inconsistent at times (a few words sound anglicized when they shouldn’t), but it’s a minor quibble in an otherwise immersive delivery. The real standout is how NeSmith handles the secondary characters—each Native leader, rival trader, or weary settler gets a distinct cadence without slipping into caricature. The production quality is solid, though I docked half a star for a few oddly placed pauses that broke the rhythm in key scenes. Still, this is historical fiction that *sounds* like history: messy, human, and impossible to look away from.