Synopsis is mainly taken from Wikipedia and expended with my own thoughts
The story follows the life of a Catholic priest named Duncan MacAskill. In the 1970s MacAskill convinced a rural Nova Scotia priest who impregnated his own housekeeper to quickly move to Toronto and avoided what could have been a significant local controversy. MacAskill was subsequently called upon numerous times by the Catholic Church to quietly resolve numerous potential controversies. By the 1990s, MacAskill was the dean of a Nova Scotia Catholic university. He is soon sent to oversee a remote Cape Breton parish were he would have a low profile, deal with a new impending public controversy, and come to terms with the consequences of his past cover-ups.
With the stream of stories about church sex abuse scandals around the world although a fiction it is more a story about contrition rather than redemption and has definitely the ring of truth to it. Mr. McIntyre award winning investigative reporter’s eyes brought forward the most disturbing crime in our society, the sexual abuse of children. The storyline takes also other themes such as the corruption and perversion of power, in this instance, the bishop and of the transgression in the Catholic Church and the hidden demons that can haunt the priests. Reading the narration feels like the priest (MacAskill) is actually talking to us. The whole story has a very sentimental tone to it and is peppered with Gaelic dialogue. It may drag a bit and the subject may not please everyone for its sensitive topic but once stated it is definitely a hard book to put down.
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