The Farran Mackenzie Lost Villages Mysteries
Plowing through the cradle of Upper Canada, the Seaway leaves in its wake eradicated history and beauty, lost generational and indigenous ways of life, vanished communities and landscapes, and drowned narrative.
Farran Mackenzie, a stranger with roots in Canada’s Lost Villages, comes “home” for the first time to unearth the human truth of the Seaway, disturbing old murders safely buried by the Project, wrapped in the painful history of its unparalleled losses, and protected by the legacy of silence.
A Violent End
When her mother’s sudden death reveals a terrible family secret, history professor Farran Mackenzie is plunged into a very personal search back through time, into the titanic history of the St. Lawrence Seaway megaproject, to awaken a sleeping murder and find the killer of the father she never knew.
(2001)
The Brother of Sleep
Cold case chaos: A police officer killed in the line of duty in Farran’s childhood and an unsolved family murder in the Lost Villages of the Seaway collide in Farran’s heart, unearthing old pain, conflicting loyalties, red flags, and the haunting question: Is the truth worth the price of knowing?
(2004)
All Mortal Things
Death comes to the house again—and it’s personal: As he did once before as a boy in his last summer in the Lost Villages, Inspector Jerry Strauss OPP faces murder in Sterling House with haunting ties to the past, one dead body, five suspects (including one MP), one ghost, one missing girl, no sleep, no Farran Mackenzie, and three hours before it all goes to the RCMP.
(2006)
On a Darkling Plain
Cue up the fiftieth anniversary of the Seaway, remains found of a young man gone missing during the Project days, fallout on both sides of the river—Take One: While dodging a cold-blooded killer, her approaching fiftieth birthday, and emotional commitment to Inspector Jerry Strauss, Farran Mackenzie faces reconnecting with the daughter she gave up 26 years before—and the dark secret that drove them apart in the first place.
(2009)
All My Worldly Goods
A lineage of secrets: Farran Mackenzie’s dig into her grandmother Evian’s mysterious past draws her into the murky history of the British Home Children, unexpected family connections, and secret murder that brings death to her doorstep, forcing Farran to use all her research skills to piece the truth together—from the streets of WW1 England, to rural post-war Ontario, to Depression-era Lost Villages and the origins of the St. Lawrence Seaway—before murder strikes again in real time.
(2017)
All Will Fall Together
With Jerry Strauss arrested for murder and her daughter back in her life bringing emotional baggage and possible personal danger, Farran Mackenzie battles her most challenging “blast from the past” since her arrival in the Seaway Valley: the return of the Moccasin train from the mists of time, a thundering phantasm that brings remembered fear and inexplicable deaths to the last generation from the Lost Villages.
(2021)
The Last Wave By
In the seventh and final novel, Farran Mackenzie must unmask a silent serial killer whose trail of death goes back to the days of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project. With Jerry Strauss facing murder charges, Farran’s family and friends race against time to close the loop around the guilty party. And there is nothing more deadly than a trapped animal…
(2022)
