Dear Mabs

Brandon Marriott’s wife, a diplomat, must be applauded for urging her husband to adopt a “readable style” for his history of Robert Lester Harper, an infantryman in the First World War. If not for that encouragement, the exploits of her great-grandfather Lester — as he was known to family and friends — might have been rendered in scholarly fashion, without the dramatic flair that distinguishes this gripping account.

Harper was born into a pioneering family. His father, Alfred Wesley Harper, resolved to leave Vancouver and make a new life in northeastern British Columbia. Along with his wife, Isabella Grace Mowbray, Alfred uprooted his three youngest sons and relocated to Peace River Country, where they homesteaded in Saskatoon Creek. Following the death of his mother — who succumbed to pneumonia during the move — Lester joined his father and little brothers, along with his wife, Mabel. While he rode “horseback through blizzards, chopped trees in snowdrifts, and...