Searing, brilliant, and tension-filled, this is a foreboding tale about truth, lies and justice — quintessential David Adams Richards.

When a terrible accident unsettles the peace in a small, tight-knit community, who will pay the price?

Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul tells an intricate story about the miscarriage of justice in the case of one man's death in a shipping yard in New Brunswick in 1985. The novel is a meticulous study of the various half truths, political machinations and outright lies that lead to the unfair incrimination of one man, Roger Savage, in the death of Hector Penniac, a promising young Micmac man from a local First Nations reserve.


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“Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul. . . .finds David Adams Richards at the top of his game. . . . [the novel] unfolds with the weight and significance of an Old Testament story, anchored by a narrative voice that is at once prophetic and detached, rooted in a strongly oral storytelling tradition. . . . It is not a subtle approach; it’s a deceptively complicated one, and tremendously effective.  The novel sparks with an immediacy and power that is rare to find in contemporary fiction: these are old questions and timeless concerns given face and voice by one of Canada’s finest writers.”
—Robert J. Wiersema, Victoria Times-Colonist

“David Adams Richards’ 14th novel brilliantly scours the conscience of a community. . . . [He] moves deftly between the multiple voices and points of view . . . [and] never fails to capture the right details to a scene. . . . That Richards can consistently bring such potentially mawkish figures to vivid life is just one reason to keep reading him.”
—Quill & Quire (starred review)
 
“In a stark, stunning and profound new novel, New Brunswick’s David Adams Richards (Mercy Among the Children, Nights Below Station Street) exposes Canada’s rawest nerve. . . . the construction of this novel is brilliantly conceived, and flawlessly executed. This is Richards at the height of his powers, which is very high indeed. The word masterpiece is not too strong.”
—National Post (Donna Bailey Nurse)
 
“In his masterful new novel, David Adams Richards shows why it matters who explains the complicated relationships between whites and Natives in his beloved Miramichi. . . . Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul is remarkable for a tightly woven, multi-layered plot and the minute detailing of a way of life that is disappearing in New Brunswick.”
—National Post (John Racovali)
 
“[Incidents in the Life of] Markus Paul is a solid offering with timely insight from one of Canada’s most acclaimed storytellers.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
 
“. . . the searing emotion and stirring probity we have come to expect of an author fighting to stave off anachronism’s claim to right and wrong, good and evil. . . . the characters themselves, who could have been frozen into moral archetypes . . . attain a welcome level of complexity. . . . Richards’s larger picture includes a moral lesson at once topical and timeless.”
—The Globe and Mail
 
“Delving into race, politics, corruption, police work, media and the power of public opinion, the novel is a superb rendering of our propensity to confuse charisma with wisdom and judgment with justice.”
—London Free Press

“David Adams Richards' latest thrills with small-town suspense and mystery. . . . Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul is a page-turning thriller delivered by Richards in his finest form yet. The who, why and hows surrounding Hector's death, and the deaths that follow, pile up like pulp logs that drop on the reader's head in a series of stunning surprises.”
—Telegraph-Journal


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DAVID ADAMS RICHARDS' most recent novel, The Lost Highway, was nominated for the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2008. The Friends of Meager Fortune won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada and the Caribbean). His novel River of the Brokenhearted received immense critical acclaim. Mercy Among the Children won the 2000 Giller Prize and was nominated for the Governor General's Award and the Trillium Award. He is the author of the celebrated Miramichi trilogy: Nights Below Station Street, winner of the Governor General's Award; Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace, winner of the Canadian Authors Association Award; and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down.


From the Hardcover edition.

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