Don Gutteridge’s fifth action-packed Marc Edwards mystery vividly portrays Canada struggling to become a nation.

It is July of 1838, and an uneasy peace hangs over Upper and Lower Canada. The provinces have suffered two rebellions, and the unresolved grievances of the local population still linger beneath the fragile calm. Britain has finally taken note of the situation, and Lord Durham is dispatched as the temporary commissioner of both colonies, tasked with finding a resolution among the disputing factions.
To Marc Edwards the new appointment signals an opportunity to unite the country for which he has long fought. But when Lord Durham’s nephew is discovered in bed beside a dead woman, the murder weapon in his hand, it seems as though any hope for progress is lost. Unwilling to jump to conclusions, Marc soon finds himself embroiled in the investigation that ranges from Toronto’s elite mansions to its most violent slums.
With the fate of a country resting on his search, Marc races to uncover the truth behind the murder before time runs out. As Marc and police constable Horatio Cobb thread their way through the political backrooms and seedy barrooms of the city, they will come face-to-face with the desperation embraced by those who have nothing—and everything— to lose.
Don Gutteridge’s Marc Edwards series is a vivid portrayal of Canada struggling to find its identity and autonomy, and in Marc Edwards readers will see the courage and integrity that helped to give birth to a country.

Don Gutteridge is the author of more than forty books: poetry, fiction and scholarly works in educational theory and practice. He was born in Sarnia, Ontario, and raised in the nearby village of Point Edward. He graduated from Western University in 1960 with an Honours English degree, and taught high school English for seven years before moving to the Western Faculty of Education. He taught there for twenty—five years and is now Professor Emeritus. He lives in London, Ontario. In a review of his book The Way It Was, in The Western News, Kane Faucher said Gutteridge's poems have been "memorially 'lived in'" and "must negotiate a world with - and without - words…Both pleasant and haunting, we are treated to a world of velvet voices…in a memorial transfer from past to present, from present to beyond."

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