An engaging enough story about a brother and sister vying for control of an isolated town on the north coast of Newfoundland. The brother is a drunken bully, the sister a ruthless antagonist. The townsfolk endure their violent rivalry, the plague, bad weather, marauding pirates, and poor fishing seasons.
The story has a fairy-tale or morality-tale quality to it, with the genre's flat characters to match. The narrative often takes unexpected turns, usually when an unexpected tragedy upends the anticipated plot development. Crummey revels in Newfoundland slang; the Acknowledgements section lists primarily works of linguistic scholarship.
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