Blood Ties

By Barbara Fradkin

Country handyman Cedric O'Toole finds his life turned upside down when a stranger named Steve shows up at his farm, claiming to be his brother. Steve believes they have the same father, and he is on a quest to find him. Cedric's unwed mother had taken the secret of his father's identity to her grave.

Together Steve and Cedric embark on a hunt for answers. They soon learn that a young man from out west crashed his snowmobile and froze to death on a wintry night a few months before Cedric's birth. They discover the man was a friend of Cedric's mother and her brother, and on that fateful night they were all drinking together at the local bar.

At every turn, everyone seems to have secrets: the police officer who investigated years ago and who is now the chief near retirement, Cedric's aunt Penny, who knows all the gossip in the town but claims to know nothing about the death, and, most alarming of all, Cedric's own grandparents and uncle, who insist no good will come of his questions.

What are they all hiding? Was the death accidental or deliberate? Was he left to die, and what role did Cedric's mother and uncle play? And the biggest question of all: does Cedric really want to know the answers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
• Release date: Aug 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781459818262

Barbara Fradkin

Barbara Fradkin is a retired psychologist and the critically acclaimed author of the Amanda Doucette thriller series and the Inspector Green detective series, which has earned two Best Novel Awards of Excellence from Crime Writers of Canada, as well as two additional nominations. Barbara shares her time between her home in Ottawa and her cottage on Sharbot Lake in Ontario.