At Home and Abroad

Find Him Guilty
by Cheryl Stewart
Who killed McGee?
It’s 1868. Canada is a new country, and the wild frontier town of Ottawa has been named its capital…
Eliza Tierney’s mother is about to remarry and the blustering bridegroom has no room on his farm for a fourteen-year-old girl. Devastated by her mother’s abandonment, Eliza walks out of their ramshackle house in Ottawa’s Lower Town and into a blizzard. She is rescued by Bridey, a blithe and beautiful girl who convinces her employer, the formidable Mrs. Siviter, to give Eliza a trial as a maidservant. Eliza must be a quick study if she hopes to impress her new employer and keep her situation.
On a cold night in April, under a blood red moon, the charismatic member of Parliament, Thomas D’Arcy McGee, is assassinated.
Eliza finds herself in the middle of the intrigue when a lodger at the tavern, the dapper Patrick James Whelan, is arrested for the murder and she is summoned to testify for the prosecution.
Bridey harbors feelings for the charismatic, but married Whelan and is determined to prove his innocence. Eliza is not so sure of Whelan's innocence, but is drawn in to Bridey's schemes to set him free. Her desire to help her friend brings her into direct conflict with her own strict moral code, as she is uncertain whether her involvement will lead to a guilty Whelan's conviction or the acquittal of a murderer