The Way the Crow Flies
by Ann-Marie MacDonald

• Vancouver Public Library, Canada

For Madeleine McCarthy, high-spirited and eight years old, her family's posting to a quiet air force base in Ontario is at first welcome, secure as she is in the love of her family, and unaware that her father, Jack, is caught up in his own web of secrets. The early sixties, a time of optimism infused with the excitement of the space race and overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War, is filtered through the rich imagination of a child as Madeleine draws us into her world.
But the base is host to some intriguing inhabitants, including the unconventional Froelich family, and the odd Mr. March whose power over the children is a secret burden that they carry. Then tragedy strikes, and a very local murder intersects with global forces, binding the participants for life. As the tension in the McCarthy's household builds, Jack must decide where his loyalties lie, and Madeleine learns about the ambiguity of human morality - a lesson that will only become clear when the quest for truth, and the killer, is renewed twenty years later.
At once a loving portrayal and indictment of an era, The Way the Crow Flies evokes the pain, confusion and humour of childhood in a perilous adult world.

Ann-Marie MacDonald is a novelist, play-wright and actor, and the author of the acclaimed play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). Her first novel, Fall On Your Knees, became a much loved international best-seller when it was published in 1996. Winner of the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book as well as numerous other literary awards, it also became a selection of Oprah's Book Club. She lives in Toronto, Canada.