The Brother of Sleep

by Maggie Wheeler

Farran Mackenzie couldn’t have been more surprised when Alison Perry walked into her University of Waterloo office. It had been thrity years since she had last seen her best friend in high school, and thirty years since her best friend’s father, a police officer, had been killed in the line of duty. And now Alison was asking for help in discovering who had really killed her father.

Farran has doubts about helping her long-lost friend. A lifetime has passed since Alison walked out of her life with no explanation but doubts fade when a car bomb results in the death of Sergeant Perry’s old partner, nearly killing Alison and Farran as well. Someone obviously doesn’t want them to dig up old skeletons, so Farran takes them to the only place she feels safe–the St. Lawrence Seaway. But the past keeps catching up with them there, too. A fated meeting in the local cemetery with Paul Vaughn, a police officer from Newfoundland, has Farran revisiting the origins of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a journery that turned her own life upside down only a year ago, and threatens to do so again. She feels a strange attraction to Paul, whose life seems to mirror her own, but what about Jerry Strauss, the OPP inspector to who she owes so much? Too many police officers in her life, both past and present, and too many coincidences. Farran’s heart is playing havoc with her instincts, which could prove dangerous, if not deadly. Whom can she trust? And is the truth worth the price of knowing

Genres: Mystery

237 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 16, 2015

Reviews

[Diane Dewing · Rating 3 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed every word of Maggie Wheeler's first book, A Violent End, so had high expectations for this one. The ideas were there but the timing of incidents was often misplaced and the pace of the tale lagged. A good editor could have turned this into the first class novel that I anticipated.

I love the author's use of history and how she explores the loss of identity that was such a part of The Lost Villages of the Seaway Valley. I remember Mary Lynn Alguire well and the passion she had for the Lost Villages. We need to hear more stories of how families and towns were destroyed in the name of progress. These are the tales of real people and should not be forgotten.