Casualties

A tragic, historical novel about people's lives being shaped and destroyed by the interplay between the forces of history and their own passions and limitations. The truth is only the first of the many casualties of war, whether it be World War II, the Spanish Civil War, or the attack on the peaceful protestors of the On to Ottawa Trek by their own government. In present day Toronto, Clare, a grieving widow, finds among her husband's things a confession of murder, signed by a man whose name she's never heard. She resolves to discover the meaning of this note, and whether her straight-laced husband could possibly have been involved. Little does she know that her quest will not only take her to Regina, Vancouver and the west of England, it will unravel much of what she knows to be true in her life, making it clear that she has also been, unknowingly, a casualty of the past. Terrence Heath has created from the materials of powerful political history and equally powerful human emotions, a sweeping novel of dire circumstance and complex characters. Are we all unavoidably casualties of history? Can the first casualty, truth, be revived to provide some measure of eventual freedom?