From a coal mine in Mexico to a wealthy family in New Brunswick, this extraordinary novel revolves around a single mysterious woman: Mary Cyr.

Mary Cyr opens in Mexico, just as a disaster strikes a small town: a coal-mine has collapsed, with thirteen men trapped inside. Less than forty-eight hours later, the authorities summarily decide to abandon all hope of finding survivors and seal up the mine entrance—willfully oblivious to the half-dozen souls still breathing below ground. Shortly after that, a thirteen-year-old Mexican boy, Victor, is discovered dead in the hotel room of a Canadian visitor—a 45-year-old woman, and heiress to a vast fortune, who goes by the name Mary Cyr.
     Thus begins this shocking, brilliant and compelling novel—a late-career tour de force by one of our most unique and powerful writers.This unwinding tale will take us from a harsh jail cell in Mexico, where Mary Cyr is imprisoned, deep into Canadian police officer John Delano's past, and even further into the murky depths of a wealthy New Brunswick family whose ties to mining, newspapers and a host of other interests lead to the highest corridors of power.