The hamlet of Meat Cove gets its name from the carcasses that marauding Vikings once tossed into the sea at the northern tip of Cape Breton. Fundy Sutherland, a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, lives a complicated life there with her 16-year-old daughter, Skye, and her married lover, Pascal. She also has a secret past as a Canadian Armed Forces “sniper with kills on four continents.” Her cruel mother, Geneva, who had a temper that “could melt a Coke bottle,” ran off on Fundy’s fifth birthday, leaving her alone with an alcoholic, unemployed father. After a well-off local family with three boys took her in, Fundy became fiercely competitive, excelling in sports and winning the Junior National Championship in the biathlon. Skye’s latest school assignment, requiring an at-home DNA test, sends Fundy into panic mode, as it could reveal aspects of her life that she’d rather stay hidden. In addition, a criminal whom Fundy helped to put in prison six years ago has been released—and he appears headed for Meat Cove. Adding to her worries are sightings of two Venezuelan boats, which may be carrying drugs. Weber’s novel is populated with colorful, sharply drawn characters—especially Fundy, a no-nonsense cop who describes herself as “like Dudley Do-Right and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, but instead of a horse, I ride a Taurus. And I wear a bra.” Also of note is Snuki Finsterblast, Skye’s science teacher: “the only woman in Cape Breton with a worse name than mine” says Fundy, and who dyes her long gray hair “black, but only once a year.” The author also appealingly shows Fundy’s relationship with Pascal to be loving and physical, marked by mutual acceptance of occasional absences and divided loyalties. The story moves quickly, shifting back and forth in time, with much of Fundy’s past revealed through passages she writes to Skye, detailing a life that’s both harrowing and exhilarating.
