Cradled on the Waves — Sean Haldane

From the winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, Crime Writers of Canada, a new Chad Hobbes mystery set in a frontier where cultures clash on the eve of a new country's birth. Prince Edward Island, 1871. An indebted British colony under pressure to join Canada. Marie-Evangéline, the daughter of a politician, is found savagely beaten to death; her newborn child is discovered miles away, floating in a cradle on a pond. Chad Hobbes must solve the murder. Is it political or private vengeance? The Island is a place of open secrets—orphanages, prostitution, smuggling, corruption—among red cliffs, pink sands, patchwork fields and wildflowers. The Islanders include English landowners, Gaelic-speaking Scots and Irish, French-speaking Acadians and a few hundred Mic Mac. Chad comes to know a Gaelic poet and fisherman, an Irish Jesuit turned police sergeant, and demented twin brothers who must be kept apart. Who is the father of the baby? Who was the mother’s lover? Who is trying to kill Chad? Who can he trust? Who is in love with whom? The answers to these questions reveal great goodness, but ‘an evil tale.’