The Hidden History of Jack Quinn

About the Book

A letter written by a seriously ill middle aged man facing the end of his life is found in a safety deposit box after he passes away. The document, immediately thought to be Jack Quinn’s last will and testament, sends his oldest friend on a quest to find his birth parents, his adoption only revealed to him shortly before he died. The search for the identity of the decedent’s birth parents takes Mark Purchell, a man who has been Quinn’s friend for over forty years, from his hometown of Ottawa to a small town on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. Along the way, Purchell encounters and is assisted by a number of intriguing characters, including a seedy but well-meaning neighbour, a stern librarian, a retired police officer, members of the clergy, a newspaper editor, a haughty hotel maitre d’ and a spirited waitress named Elaine. His investigation of The Hidden History of Jack Quinn eventually leads to a newspaper archive and a surprising answer to a departed friend’s last request.

About the Author

Mike Robertson, resigned for several years to the routine of retirement, continues to pursue the notion that he may have a literary aptitude, a belief that has sustained his endeavours for over a decade and the publication of various projects. His most recent effort, a novel entitled The Hidden History of Jack Quinn, is his eighth book, joining three collections of short stories, Casting Shadows, Parts of A Past, and These Memories Clear, three volumes of literary entertainments entitled The Smart Aleck Chronicles, and two novels, the most recently published The First Communion Murders and Gone and Back which was released in 2007. For reasons still unknown, Mike Robertson lives in Ottawa, Canada.