NATIONS APART

A Canadian firefighter with a tortured past gets caught up in political unrest in 2001 Buenos Aires.

In the mid-1960s, the Canadian government forcibly separated aboriginal kids from their parents, sending the children off to residential schools to be “civilized”–taught English and Catholicism at the expense of their traditional languages and ways. When a Mountie and a stern Catholic priest named Father Ricardo shows up to the Frank household to take his three children, they leave a wide trail of destruction and grief behind them. The Franks are despondent without their beloved kids, eventually succumbing to alcoholism and suicide while the children are cruelly abused at their new school. Eventually, the sinister Father Ricardo mysteriously whisks older sister Rosie away, and her younger brother Leonard and sister Christine flee the school. Leonard and Christine reach the safety of a relative’s house, but they never find out what happened to Rosie. Decades later, the siblings are still close, but only to each other, as their tortured past makes it difficult for them to form deep bonds with others. Things seem like they might be about to change for Lenny when, in 2001, he is sent to Buenos Aires to work on an international firefighting report with the beautiful Marcella, an Argentine government official with a similarly dark past. Unfortunately, Argentina is in a state of chaos, and Lenny gets too close to a protest and disappears, wounded and confused. Marcella, who may be developing feelings for Lenny, must find him while keeping her daughter safe, which may prove an impossible task in the midst of the turmoil. McGeegan’s prose is tight, and once it gets going, the plot is gripping. An overabundance of flashbacks sometimes threaten to derail the proceedings, but generally the book’s well-fleshed-out characters and twisting storyline draw the reader to a satisfying, if slightly too coincidence-driven, ending.

A compelling plot packed with fleshed-out characters and fascinating backdrops.