Speak Ill of the Living (Eddie Bourque)
by Mark Arsenault
Category: Fiction

Everybody had thought the car-jacking led to the banker’s murder. Then he turns up in a photograph taken by his kidnappers. But if the banker is still alive, whose ashes are buried in his grave? Reporter Eddie Bourque is back, chasing down a story that could make his career. Eddie is a real maverick, stubborn as a mule, smart and intuitive—in fact, he has the requisite nose for news. And he’s lucky in getting the tip of a lifetime. It leads him to ask difficult questions and chase down unlikely leads—like his imprisoned brother, Henry Bourque, a man Eddie scarcely knows. Does Henry have a real clue or is he conning Eddie, not just about the banker but about whether he committed the double murder that sent him away for life? Eddie’s hunt for answers takes him across the neighborhoods of his old industrial mill town, Lowell, Massachusetts—its past, its gritty, multicultural present, its power structures, its underbelly—and deep into his own family’s dark secrets. As Eddie and his new sister-in-law struggle to untangle the knots, they hear the echoes of a forgotten crime and find bodies blocking their path to truth. Someone is killing Eddie’s new sources....