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Guernica Editions (Canada and USA)

An Evil Tale I Heard

In 1871 Chad and Lukswaas, his Tsimshian wife from British Columbia, are on their way to England when Chad is asked to solve a new murder on another British island, Prince Edward Island, in the Atlantic. Its Mi’kmaq name is Abegweit – ‘Cradled on the Waves’. The Mi’kmaq are now outnumbered by French and English-speaking settlers and the island is in debt and under pressure to join Canada. Marie Évangéline, the daughter of one politician and wife of another, is found savagely beaten to death. Who is trying to kill whom? Who is in love with whom? These questions reveal great goodness, but ‘an evil tale’.

What carries the novel is not only the excellent prose and the page-turning suspense, but also the extensive historical research that Haldane, who worked in PEI [Prince Edward Island] for several years, has done to recreate the island’s society in the run-up to its entry into Confederation.

Ian Thomas Shaw – The Ottawa Review of Books

Some reviews of The Devil’s Making the first Chad Hobbes mystery.

An absolutely worthy winner. … Haldane makes the reader feel as if they’ve been dropped into the daily lives of those living in 1869-era Victoria, and refuses to shy away from the truth in favor of a more politically correct approach to historical fiction.

[Sean Haldane] is a major talent. ‘The Devil’s Making’ combines Canadian history, solid crime plotting and a real sense of native-Canadian social history into a stunning tale of greed, deceit and murder. … Beautifully plotted and written, this is a terrific debut that promises greater works to come.

Haldane’s first mystery, evocative and elegantly written, is a deeply philosophical look at a relatively unknown historical period.