Showing Man in the Shadows by Gordon Henderson

Fast-paced, gripping and rich with historical detail, Man in the Shadows builds on the historical record to illuminate one of the most dramatic times in Canadian history

In 1867, three British colonies became the four provinces of the new Dominion of Canada. Among the Fathers of Confederation was D’Arcy McGee, a fiery former Irish nationalist and friend of John A. Macdonald. As the fledgling country was forming, its security was threatened by the Fenian Brotherhood, a group of Irish republicans that advocated a forcible takeover of Canada by the United States.

In this historical novel, Gordon Henderson imagines a cross-border plot to assassinate key Canadian political figures—with complicity at the highest levels of the U.S. government—in an attempt to destabilize the new country. We follow the fictional Conor O’Dea, a young Irish Catholic with political aspirations, who is the assistant to D’Arcy McGee. O’Dea becomes romantically involved with a young Protestant woman, which provokes upset and violence. When McGee is assassinated by a Fenian sympathizer—or so everyone believes—O’Dea takes it upon himself to discover the real assassin, and to prevent the prime minister of Canada, Sir John himself, from being the next victim.