The storied life of Winston Churchill, Britain’s legendary leader in the war against Nazism, is coming to an end. But Churchill holds a secret, one he is driven to disclose before death. Could it be that Churchill was descended, through his American mother, from Indigenous people of North America? Few people would believe it, as he well knows. But Churchill’s certainty that he possesses actual ancestral memories from this inheritance gave him the fortitude to stand, almost alone, against Hitler. As he nears his end, Churchill learns that William Cull, a student from Newfoundland has arrived in London—a descendant and namesake of a notorious frontiersman and alleged persecutor of the Beothuk in the early 1800s. Churchill summons Cull to his home in London, disrupting the young man’s life, to hear and record the great man’s mystery, in an uncertain race against time.

Born in Newfoundland, Bill Rowe graduated in English from Memorial University and attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, obtaining an Honours M.A. in law.Elected five times to the House of Assembly, Rowe served as a minister in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and as leader of the Official Opposition. He practised law in St. John’s for many years and has been a long-time public affairs commentator, appearing regularly on national and local television, as well as hosting a daily radio call-in show on VOCM and writing weekly newspaper columns.Rowe has written nine books: Clapp’s Rock, a bestselling novel published by McClelland & Stewart and serialized on CBC national radio; The Temptation of Victor Galanti, a second novel published by McClelland & Stewart; a volume of essays on politics and public affairs published by Jesperson Press of St. John’s; the critically acclaimed political memoir Danny Williams: The War With Ottawa, which appeared on the Globe and Mail’s bestsellers list in 2010; Danny Williams, Please Come Back, a collection of newspaper articles covering social, political, and economic issues; Rosie O’Dell, a critically acclaimed crime novel published by Pennywell Books, a literary imprint of Flanker Press; The Premiers Joey and Frank, which was a Globe and Mail bestseller in 2013, and which the Hill Times selected as one of the Best 100 Books in Politics, Public Policy, and History in 2013; The Monster of Twenty Mile Pond, the much-loved novel of a legendary monster who engulfed the lives of two teenaged girls; and now The True Confessions of a Badly Misunderstood Dog, a fictionalized account of the frantic years when a Labrador retriever and two cats lived with the author’s family.Rowe is a member of the Writers’ Union of Canada and has served on the executive of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is married to Penelope Ayre Rowe CM of St. John’s. They have a son, Dorian, a daughter, Toby, and three grandchildren, Rowan, Elizabeth, and Phoebe.

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