Punishment

MacIntyre’s story of Tony Breau, a retired Corrections Office and a native Nova Scotian, and his interactions with a former girlfriend and some characters from his boyhood hometown is an interesting story and apply named as punishment is inflicted on all of his characters. It’s an interesting story of life in rural Nova Scotia, much like life in any small rural community and will appeal to many. A good read.

I received a free copy of this novel through the goodreads first reads program.
This book was not what I expected. It was not really a mystery, but a drama, where an ex-corrections officer is in a dilemma where he wants to make good, but everyone around him wants him to leave it be.

This novel follows Tony Breau, a retired corrections officer, who moves back to his home town hot on the heels of his divorce. He's seeking solitude and peace but ends up getting a whole lot more than he bargained for when an ex-con with personal ties gets arrested for murder and looks to him for help. The victim is the granddaughter of his old flame, and with lust and the community on one side, and his conscious on the other we witness Tony's struggle to do the right thing.

All the characters in this novel are flawed human beings; some are trying to find redemption, while others loudly defend their obnoxious behaviour. Throughout this book many questions arise such as: Where is justice? What is punishment? Who is/is not culpable? What is community? Where is truth? These questions will make you think.

"ALL are punished!" This telling line, voiced by the Prince at the close of ROMEO AND JULIET, kept running through my mind as I literally raced through Linden MacIntyre's latest addition to his steadily growing canon of Nova Scotia books, aptly titled PUNISHMENT. Because it does indeed seem like everyone in this story is punished in one way or another. And not just the criminals, but also their keepers and their victims.

The protagonist/narrator here is Tony Breau, a prison guard and corrections officer forced into retirement for being a whistle blower, or a "rat," who informed on his fellow guards for looking away during a prison riot murder in Kingston. His marriage too has gone south, and he retreats to St. Ninian, the small town in Nova Scotia where he was raised by his adoptive parents, the MacMillans, both now gone. I figured out early on that MacIntyre wove some familial connections into this story which lightly link it to his much praised and award-winning Cape Breton trilogy ([[ASIN:000639583X Long Stretch [Paperback]]], [[ASIN:B0031TZ8N6 The Bishop's Man]], and [[ASIN:B005BUG6Q6 Why Men Lie]]). Tony's youthful sweetheart, Caddie, is a cousin to the Gillis family that figured so prominently in those books. But now she is a grieving grandmother, and Dwayne Strickland, a charming and conniving ex-con, is suspected of supplying the drugs that killed her granddaughter. And there is a third town character looming darkly throughout the narrative, Neil Archie MacDonald, Vietnam vet and former Boston police officer who, like Tony, was forced into an early retirement for reasons that only become clear as the plot progresses.

The story is set firmly and skillfully against the aftermath of 9/11 and the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The tension between Tony, Caddie, Strickland, Neil Archie and the tight-knit St. Ninian community increases exponentially as Strickland is arrested and a pre-trial hearing reveals all of the small town prejudices and cruelties so often displayed toward 'outsiders' like Dwayne - and Tony.

The characters here are complex and finely drawn. There are no clearly defined 'good guys' or 'bad guys' here - a trademark of MacIntyre fiction. The justice and penal systems are both closely examined in this probing look at the whole concept of punishment and rehabilitation. Tony Breau, a man of conscience who tries repeatedly to do the right thing, is perhaps the one punished most of all as the plot becomes more and more complex. The pace of the story becomes breathtaking and I found myself literally racing to the end of this book. It is an 'unputdownable' read. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. PUNISHMENT is, quite simply, pure MacIntyre at the top of his game.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER