End of the Line - Janet Trull

Haliburton, Ontario, 1878. The new Victoria Rail Line delivers hundreds of immigrants to the last station in the Northern Townships. Some are wealthy, eager to profit from new opportunities. Most are poor and illiterate. The farmland is free if you can build a cabin and raise crops out of granite.

Many owe their survival to Ona McLeod and her band of fallen women who offer essential services at the Nunnery. Are you hungry? Lonely? Do you need a cure for venereal disease? The nuns can help.  Emboldened by positions of power, and supported by the moral folk of the village, Rev. Whitlock and banker Alex Smith set out to banish the women. It takes a brutal murder to reveal the worst of human greed and the best of the human heart.

The dead have much to teach the living at the End of the Line.