E-book
Songs of Love on a December Night [electronic resource] :
From one of Canada's most celebrated and controversial novelists comes a tale of dark aspirations, betrayal and murder. When Colonel Musselman is found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, a rumour soon surfaces that he was murdered by his own teenage son, Jamie. As weeks, months and years pass, Jamie—shy and withdrawn but brilliant—continues to maintain his innocence. Yet few others, besides his fiancée, Gertie, believe him. Suspected, harassed and questioned, Jamie is finally tried and convicted of the crime. But nothing is as it seems. Before the murder, unlikely alliances between a self-styled revolutionary recently expelled from university, a young man claiming Indigenous heritage, and Gertie’s own hapless father had long ago set the stage for intrigue and bloodletting. As the aftermath of this crime threatens to destroy both the innocent and the guilty, it is left to a few citizens who have been dismissed and overlooked to solve what the others, blinded by their arrogance and personal vanity, refuse to admit. Richly conceived and utterly fearless in its examination of morality, justice, prejudice and corruption, Songs of Love on a December Night is an epic exploration of the self-betrayal that we are capable of, and of the redemption we so often aspire to.
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Electronic resources
- Random House, Inc.
From one of Canada's most celebrated and controversial novelists comes a tale of dark aspirations, betrayal and murder.
When Jamie Musselman's father is found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot, it doesn't take long for rumours and suspicions about Jamie to swirl through Miramachi. Why was Jamie also shot that night? Why was money discovered under his pillow? Was it true, as some of the boys at his school claimed, that Jamie possessed a cruel nature and had even once been spotted killing robins?
As the years bend on, Jamie continues to maintain his innocence, but few others, aside from his fiancée, Gertie, believe him. Including the police, who finally arrest him. Including the judge, who convicts Jamie of murder.
But nothing is ever as it seems in Miramachi, a place where vanity, resentment and crimes of opportunity are forever brewing, and unlikely alliances are continually being formed. In the weeks before the murder, a self-proclaimed revolutionary had returned to Miramachi after being expelled from university; a career criminal falsely claiming Indigenous heritage had been released from jail; and a hapless bully of a fatherâGertie's fatherâhad discovered there was money in the Musselmans' home, kept in the very study where Jamie's father was found dead. Is there more to the story than the townsfolk believe?
Richly conceived and fearless in its examination of morality and justice, prejudice and corruption, Songs of Love on a December Night is an epic exploration of the evil we are capable of and of the redemption we can aspire to.
