The Pity of the Winds

Book excerpt: Meet young police officer Pete Jakes and his Turkish-born wife, Ali. Petes last posting was as a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. After a serious brush with a roadside explosive, he decided to switch careers and look for peace in rural Ontario. Unfortunately, the Jakes chose to come to Middle Island, population 4,500, where a proposed wind energy project has set the community into a tailspin. For millennia, Hawks Nest Point, a wind-swept rocky spear stabbing out into the lake, was literally left to the birds. Now an energy-hungry world has caught up with it. People want to harvest the wind. The Jakes find themselves setting up house amidst a weird potpourri of bird lovers, money-hungry real estate operators, and mysterious vandals in the night. Then tragedy strikes when a worker falls to his death from the demonstration turbine tower. Pete doubts the official accident verdict, but he must find proof for his suspicions. As Pete delves further into the motives and actions of the local islanders, tempers erupt and a murderer lurks under the wailing winds at Hawks Nest Point.