A Violent End

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

In the summer of 1999, university professor Farran McKenzie returns to
her home area in Eastern Ontario, ostensibly to undertake research into
the effects of the flooding of the villages that were lost in the
creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. But her real goal is to learn more
about her mother, who died the previous year, and her father, whose
remains, concealed since the flooding 40 years ago, were discovered by
two hikers the previous summer.

Her arrival stirs up memories among her parents’ contemporaries, who
thought that her mother had died long ago and were already dealing with
the memories stirred up by the discovery of her father’s skeleton.
When a friend of her parents dies in suspicious circumstances, Farran is
forced to put her research skills to new use, before her father’s
murderer can kill her, too.

Farran’s discoveries about her family are intertwined with flashbacks
to the flooding of the Lost Villages and to the history of her family
and their friends who peopled them. As this intriguing and fast-paced
story unfolds, with many twists along the way, the reader becomes
acquainted with the restrictive social mores of the time.