The Cape Breton Trilogy

Father Duncan MacAskill has spent most of his priesthood as the 'Exorcist' - an enforcer employed by his bishop to discipline wayward clergy and suppress potential scandal.

Hidden in a small rural parish to avoid an impending public controversy, Duncan must now confront the consequences of his past. Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy and sudden self-knowledge, Duncan discovers how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets either find their way to the light of understanding, or poison any chance we have for love and spiritual peace.

Winner of the 2009 Giller Prize, Canada's Premier Literary Prize.

Effie Gillis is a history professor teaching at a major university. She is also a survivor - of a troubled childhood, two failed marriages and numerous relationships which, for the most part, ended badly.

Now, out of her past, arrives a man who is familiar and yet mysterious; mature, wise, and full of youthful energy. His presence is a reassurance, but he also carries with him an aura that is menacing.

Slowly she becomes dependent on a relationship that's rich in truth and promise - but doomed by the lie that gave it life.

Drawing on both minor and major characters from his two previous novels, The Long Stretch and The Bishop's Man, Why Men Lie is a story of longing, love and loss in middle age.