From Scotiabank Giller Prize–winner Linden MacIntyre, a powerful exploration of justice and vengeance, and the peril that ensues when passion replaces reason, in a small town shaken by a tragic death.
Forced to retire early from his job as a corrections officer in Kingston Penitentiary, Tony Breau has limped back to the village where he grew up to lick his wounds, only to find that Dwayne Strickland, a young con he’d had dealings with in prison is back there too–and once again in trouble. Strickland has just been arrested following the suspicious death of a teenage girl, the granddaughter of Caddy Stewart, Tony’s first love.
Tony is soon caught in a fierce emotional struggle between the outcast Strickland and the still alluring Caddy. And then another figure from Tony’s past, the forceful Neil Archie MacDonald–just retired in murky circumstances from the Boston police force–stokes the community’s anger and suspicion and an irresistible demand for punishment. As Tony struggles to resist the vortex of vigilante action, Punishment builds into a total page-turner that blindsides you with twists and betrayals.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE OLA EVERGREEN AWARD
WINNER OF THE JIM CONNORS DARTMOUTH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
FINALIST FOR THE CBC BOOKIE AWARDS
“The novel is a gripping mystery. . . . the reader remains on the edge of his or her easy chair.” —The Kingston Whig-Standard
“Linden MacIntyre proves once again how adept he is at dealing with the topical and the taboo. . . . Punishment has a puzzle of a plot and will surely keep most readers guessing until the final pages. . . . MacIntyre has painted a brilliant picture of a small community where the close and far-reaching ties that bind can also strangle.” —Winnipeg Free Press
“Knife-twistingly powerful. . . . I have never read anything quite like it. . . . It urges a reader to stay up deep into the night as I did, flipping pages feverishly. . . . Punishment . . . is its own wondrous beast, every bit as vigorous as Lehane’s own brilliant work. With it, MacIntyre cements his reputation as one of our country’s most vital writers.” —Craig Davidson, The Globe and Mail
“Punishment is another winner that displays all of MacIntyre’s talent for character development, for sympathetic treatment of people’s foibles and shortcomings, and for descriptions of landscapes—with the addition of amazing crime novel twists and turns. . . . [A]n absolute frenzy of unexpected exposés.” —Waterloo Region Record
