Children in the Morning
A Mystery
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781550229271
- Publish Date
- May 2010
- List Price
- $26.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781554906796
- Publish Date
- May 2010
- List Price
- $13.99
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770410459
- Publish Date
- Oct 2011
- List Price
- $14.95
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction.
“Emery’s first novel won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2007 and it is clear why. Her writing is fast-paced and exciting, and the book is difficult to put down.” — Scene Magazine
Hotshot lawyer Beau Delaney is charged with the murder of his wife Peggy. The Delaney family dynamics and the appearance of a mysterious child complicate Monty Collins’s defence of Delaney, and convince him that his client is harbouring secrets.
Beau Delaney is a bit of a showboat, a prominent lawyer whose exploits have become the subject of a Hollywood film. He’s also the father of ten children (many adopted). Now he’s charged with the murder of his wife, Peggy. It’s another hard case for lawyer and bluesman Monty Collins. His client is keeping secrets; a mysterious eleventh child turns up and demands to take part in the trial; and the last words anyone heard from Peggy were “the Hells Angels!”
Monty isn’t alone in trying to save Delaney from life in prison and save his sprawling family from breaking up. Monty’s pal, Father Brennan Burke, has a hand in the investigation, too. But Burke is also lending a hand to Monty’s estranged wife, Maura. And the priest finds himself burdened with unwelcome secrets of his own when Maura’s old flame arrives on the scene and threatens to turn her world upside down.
Watching all this through the eyes of a child is Monty and Maura’s little girl, Normie. Like her spooky grandmother in Cape Breton, Normie has the gift of second sight. When she starts having visions that seem to involve Beau Delaney, she can’t tell whether they reflect something he’s done in the past, or something he might do in the future. We hear the story from two points of view, experience and innocence, Monty and Normie, and ask ourselves which of them will be first to uncover the truth about Beau Delaney.
About the Collins-Burke Mysteries
This multi-award-winning series is centred around two main characters who have been described as endearingly flawed: Monty Collins, a criminal defence lawyer who has seen and heard it all, and Father Brennan Burke, a worldly, hard-drinking Irish-born priest. The priest and the lawyer solve mysteries together, but sometimes find themselves at cross-purposes, with secrets they cannot share: secrets of the confessional, and matters covered by solicitor-client confidentiality. The books are notable for their wit and humour, and their depiction of the darker side of human nature — characteristics that are sometimes combined in the same person, be it a lawyer, a witness on the stand, or an Irish ballad singer who doubles as a guerrilla fighter in the Troubles in war-torn Belfast. In addition to their memorable characters, the books have been credited with a strong sense of place and culture, meticulous research, crisp and authentic dialogue, and intriguing plots. The novels are set in Nova Scotia, Ireland, England, Italy, New York, and Germany. The series begins with Sign of the Cross (2006) and continues to the most recent installment, Postmark Berlin (2020).
About the author
Awards
- Short-listed, Dartmouth Book Award For Fiction
Contributor Notes
Anne Emery is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School. She has worked as a lawyer, legal affairs reporter, and researcher. She lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her husband and daughter. She is the author of Sign of the Cross, winner of the 2007 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel, Obit (2007), Barrington Street Blues (2008), and Cecilian Vespers (2009).
Excerpt: Children in the Morning: A Mystery (by (author) Anne Emery)
Normie
You should know right from the beginning that I am not bragging. I was brought up better than that, even though I am the child of a broken home. That’s another thing you should know. but — and it’s a big but — (I’m allowed to say “big but” like this but not “big butt” in a mean voice when it might be heard by a person with a big butt, and hurt their feelings) — but, about my broken home, Mummy says people don’t say that anymore. Anyway, even if they do, it doesn’t bother me. It kinda bothers my brother Tommy Douglas even though he’s a boy, and a lot of times boys pretend they’re tough. Tommy never says, but I know. We have another brother, Dominic, but he’s a little baby so he’s too young to know anything. However, the whole thing is not that bad. That’s probably because we don’t have the kind of dad who took off and didn’t care and didn’t pay us any alimony. When you’ve been around school as long as I have — I’m in grade four — you know kids who have fathers like that. But not my dad. We spend a lot of days with him, not just with my mum. And they both love us. They are in their forties but are both still spry and sharp as a tack. It’s stupid the way they don’t just move back into the same house together but, aside from that, they are great people and I love them very much.
Mum is Maura MacNeil. People say she has a tongue on her that could skin a cat. She is always very good to me and never skins me. But if I do something bad, she doesn’t have to stop and think about what to say; she has words ready to go. She teaches at the law school here in Halifax. My dad is Monty Collins. He is really sweet and he has a blues band. I always ask him to sing and play the song “Stray Cat Strut” and he always does. It’s my favourite song; I get to do the “meow.” He is also a lawyer and he makes faces about his clients. They’re bad but he has to pretend they’re good when he’s in front of the judge so the judge won’t send them down the river and throw away the key. Or the paddle, or whatever it is. It means jail.
I forgot to tell you my name. It’s Normie. What? I can hear you saying. It’s really Norma but you won’t see that word again in these pages. Well, except once more, right here, because I have to explain that it comes from an opera called Norma. Mum and Dad are opera fans and they named me after this one, then realized far too late that it was an old lady’s name (even though the N-person in the opera was not old, but never mind). So they started calling me Normie instead.
I am really good in math and English, and I know so many words that my teacher has got me working with the grade seven book called Words Are Important, which was published way back in 1955 when everybody learned harder words in school than they do these days. And I have musical talent but do not apply myself, according to my music teacher. I am really bad at social studies but that’s because I don’t care about the tundra up north, or the Family Compact, whoever they are. But it was interesting to hear that we burned down the White House when we had a war with the Americans back in 1812. Tommy says we kicked their butts (he said it, not me). You never think of Canadians acting like that.
Anyway, I must get on with my story. As I said, I’m not bragging and I don’t mean about the math and English. I mean I’m not bragging about what I can see and other people can’t. Because it’s a gift and I did nothing to earn it. And also because it’s all there for other people to see, but they are just not awake (yet) to these “experiences” 2 or “visions.” I’m not sure what to call them. They say about me: “She has the sight.” Or: “She has second sight, just like old Morag.” Old Morag is my great-grandmother. Mum’s mother’s mother. She’s from Scotland. And she is really old; it’s not just people calling her that. She must be eighty-five or something. But there are no flies on her, everyone says. People find her spooky, but I understand her.
I am looking at my diary, which says Personal and Private! on the cover. I hide it in a box under my bed. Nobody crawls under there to spy on my stuff. The diary is where I kept all my notes, day after day, about this story. I am taking the most important parts of it and writing them down on wide-ruled paper, using a Dixon Ticonderoga 2/hb pencil, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. I am asking Mummy about ways to say (write) certain things, but I’m not telling her what I am writing. All the information you will read here is my own.
Editorial Reviews
“Emery paints a poignant portrait of a girl burdened by information she was never supposed to have, and of a tormented man who, at the most critical juncture, realizes that mounting a proper defence requires fumbling around in some very dark corners.” — Quill & Quire
“The words flow seamlessly from [Emery] and you are instantly in the damp streets of Halifax . . . [Children in the Morning is] a delight, as we are guided through the wonderfully rich culture and lifestyle of Nova Scotia, and then evolves into a masterfully captained ship of a mystery.” — The Hurley Edition
“This sixth Monty Collins book by Halifax lawyer Emery is the best of the series. It has a solid plot, good characters and a very strange child who has visions.” — Globe and Mail
“By having Normie tell the story, Arthur Ellis Award–winning Emery allows readers to walk beside the girl as she deals with her second sight, the abuse of other children, and the anguish she feels when the peace of her home life is threatened. Not since Robert K. Tannenbaum's Lucy Karp, a young woman who talks with saints, have we seen a more poignant rendering of a female child with unusual powers.” — Library Journal
“Emery’s first novel won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel in 2007 and it is clear why. Her writing is fast-paced and exciting, and the book is difficult to put down.” — Scene Magazine