James Ingram “Cut” Barnard was a lifetime social worker whose career was marked by his passion for helping his young clients and his disdain for bureaucrats. The latter cost him his job at the Southern Pines School district and forced him to return to his childhood neighbourhood of Verdun in the southern tip of Montreal. The move allowed the widower to reconnect with his two grown children and restart his career with Montreal Social Services. However he quickly finds that Verdun has changed and soon becomes involved with Russian mobsters while trying to help those affected by drugs, alcohol, and prostitution. His desire to give troubled kids a fighting chance once again finds him at odds with his superiors. A woman from his past and an orphaned Russian provides Cut with a new outlook on life.
Two travelers embark on a trip from the Maine coast to Vancouver, British Columbia, while enjoying a slice of life in the 21st century. En route they encounter various detours and conflicts between old world ethics and contemporary freedom and absence of values.
It is a romance between a prospective nun and an atheist. Their discussions, which touch on many of the big questions in our lives, take place against a backdrop of winter wonderland and boisterous Christmas celebrations in a cottage somewhere in the Eastern Townships.
It’s July 1975 and Dave Rogers has just landed his first reporting job at the Granby Leader Mail. Having grown up in Montreal, it’s not a part of Quebec’s Eastern Townships he knows very well, despite having been born there. Amidst the stories of little old ladies turning 100, petty thefts and small town politics, Dave soon finds himself covering real news. But before long he’s raised the ire of the local crime boss, the mother of a cattle thief, and an English rights vigilante group. Not to mention the mysterious characters who seem to be watching his every move, or the father he barely remembers who haunts his dreams. There are longstanding scores to be settled, but extracting truth from the lies pushes Dave to the limits of what he can, and can’t, live with.
