["A Country of Strangers"] is a companion piece to "The Light in the Forest."… [The] earlier novel told of the return of a captive youth named True Son from the Delaware nation, of his numb misery in the home of his white parents, of his escape back to the only world he knew. Now, the author follows the same plot-pattern on the distaff side. Once again, he shows us how easily the ways of natural man, and the ways of civilization, can become mortal enemies. Once again, he makes us wonder if the gulf dividing the red man from the white is too wide to cross….

In less knowing hands, some of these episodes might come close to melodrama, yet Mr. Richter never falters as he tells his story of colonial America through Stone Girl's eyes. Here, the white man is the enemy, the interloper who has already...