BLOOD IN THE WATER

For fans of The Perfect Storm and Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil comes a dramatic narrative set in a little-known Nova Scotia Community.

In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small Cape Breton town cold-bloodedly murdered their neighbour, Phillip Boudreau, at sea. While out checking their lobster traps, two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson saw Boudreau in his boat, the Midnight Slider, about to vandalize their lobster traps. Like so many times before, Boudreau was about to cost them thousands of dollars out of their seasonal livelihood. One man took out a rifle and fired four shots at Boudreau and his boat. To finish the job, they rammed their own larger boat over the top of his speedboat. Boudreau's body was never found. Then they completed the day's fishing and went home to Petit de Grat on Isle Madame.

Phillip Boudreau, known as a small-time criminal who had terrorized and entertained Petit de Grat for two decades, was funny and frightening, loathed, loved, and feared. One neighbour even said Phillip would "steal the beads off Christ's moccasins" - then give the booty away to someone in need. But Don Cameron discovered more: three cases of rape, death threats, violence. Phillip would also taunt his victims, and threaten them with arson if they reported him. Of those who were not afraid of him, many were indebted to him, while the police and the Fisheries officers were cowed, distracted, and hobbled by shrinking budgets. Phillip seemed invincible, and the worst they could do was throw him in jail, a place where he was perfectly content to be during the cold winter season.

So why would two respected fishermen kill him? Many said that if they had not done it, others would have.
This is a story not about lobster, but about the grand themes of power and law, security and self-respect, which raises a disturbing question for you the reader: Are there times when taking the law into your own hands really is the responsible thing to do?

SILVER DONALD CAMERON is one of Canada's most accomplished authors. His literary work includes plays, films, radio and TV scripts, hundreds of magazine articles, and nineteen books. He has been a columnist for The Globe and Mail, and for thirteen years he wrote an influential weekly column for the Halifax Sunday Herald. Cameron has also been a professor or writer-in-residence at seven universities and Dean of Community Studies at Cape Breton University. In 2012, he was appointed to both the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, and awarded the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2019 he was appointed the first Farley Mowat Chair in Environment at Cape Breton University.