Lost Boundaries

About the Book

            Sibyl Robinson hears the evening news that Quebec's Lagado government has called a referendum it hopes will separate the French province from Canada.  Upset by the announcement the unilingual anglophone leaves her flat on Cumae street and walks her dog Trio through Montreal's Little Burgundy district down to the Lachine Canal. On the way home she discovers the slain body a black youth in a school yard near her flat. Packets of cocaine are found in the boy's pockets and police assume the killing to be drug related.

            Sibyl's concern over the murder of 'one of her people' leads her to a friend of the slain youth and the two set out to find the killer. Their unusual investigation leads to officer Jean-Luc Turcotte as the culprit. He has been stealing confiscated cocaine from a police lock-up and soliciting black neighborhood youths to deliver the drugs to his selected customers.

            Detective lieutenant Marc Kelly is assigned to the case and Jean-Luc is eventually charged with the youth's murder.  Sibyl who becomes a chief witness for the defense breaks with her son Mark when he decides to defend the white officer. A rather bizarre trial ensues and Jean-Luc is acquitted.   

About the Author

     A three hour conversation with Josephine Baker remains the highlight of Ernest Tucker's journalistic career. He caught La Baker's North American debut at Toronto's Loews Uptown Theatre while a journalism student at Ryerson Institute of Technology. She spotted the wide-eyed student sitting front row centre during her performance and walked off stage to take his hands for 'good luck.' He begged for an interview and she invited him backstage for the long talk. Other visiting artists Tucker interviewed for the college paper include Nat King Cole, Vic Damone, Louis Armstrong and Joe Louis.

    While pursuing a degree in English literature at Montreal's Sir George Williams College Tucker was named editor of the college newspaper, the 1957 Year Book and the literary magazine. He founded The Georgian Players, produced Henrick Ibsen's 'Ghosts' and performed the role of Parson Manders. He undertook these tasks while working nights as a proofreader at the Montreal Gazette.

    Tucker returned to his native Bermuda after graduation and became a reporter on the island's Gazette. His story of two Australians touring the world on motorcycle caught the attention of a visiting travel editor who offered Tucker work on The Toronto Telegram. After some time with the daily Tucker joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where he worked as a reporter in the Toronto and Montreal newsrooms for 34 years. He now teaches at a Montreal college. This is his second novel.

His first novel, Underworld Dwellers, dealt with a group of Montreal con artists who defrauded American widows of millions of dollars by selling them shares in non existent Quebec mines in the early nineteen sixties.