The job was hard enough since Halifax became the focal point as the major staging area for the convoys supplying the war effort in England. Robichaud has his hands full dealing with the influx of people looking for work, foreign merchantmen looking for distractions from the perils of convoy duty and servicemen waiting transport across the Atlantic. Compounding his headaches is the growing shortages for affordable housing and the prohibitions on liquor sales in the city. Now he has a murder to deal with. The dead man with a hole in his head was fished from the water just outside the anti-submarine nets by a local fishing boat. His name was Denny Cafferty, a suspected IRA soldier who fled Ireland and the British Special Branch. Robichaud and his partner, Pete Duncan, soon find themselves up to their necks with more murders and a homicidal German spy.

I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1948. I left home at age 16 and, after a brief stint in the army, I began a career as a merchant seaman (12 years). This took me to many places in the world. Following that, I entered into a professional career as a transportation /logistics specialist. Somewhere in there I took a few years off and ‘thumbed’ my way across North America and Mexico as part of the ‘Hippie’ counterculture movement. I was also active in the civil rights and anti-war movements. I have lived and worked in many countries over the course of my life and have gained a knowledge and appreciation for the differences we share as humans. I like to think that this life experience has enabled me to apply a certain perspective to my characters and stories.

Paul H. Doucette's profile page

Doucette paints a well detailed and researched story set in the turbulent years of the second world war on the Halifax docks where troops and supplies were deployed to the European theatre and so were a prime place for corruption and espionage. A must read.

Marie Rafter