Blood in the Water: A True Story of Small-Town Revenge

by Silver Donald Cameron (Abridged by)

Overview

“Fascinating! [A] must-read for all concerned about how humans manage to live together. Or not.” —Margaret Atwood

“Superb... an instant true crime classic.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A masterfully told true story, perfect for fans of Say Nothing and Furious Hours: a brutal murder in a small Nova Scotia fishing community raises urgent questions of right and wrong, and even the very nature of good and evil.


In his riveting and meticulously reported final book, Silver Donald Cameron offers a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing and its devastating repercussions.
 
Cameron’s searing, utterly gripping story about one small community raises a disturbing question: Are there times when taking the law into your own hands is not only understandable but the responsible thing to do?
 
In June 2013, three upstanding citizens of a small town on Cape Breton Island murdered their neighbor, Phillip Boudreau, at sea.
 
While out checking their lobster traps, two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson saw Boudreau in his boat, the Midnight Slider, about to vandalize their lobster traps. Like so many times before, the small-time criminal was about to cost them thousands of dollars out of their seasonal livelihood.
 
Boudreau seemed invincible, a miscreant who would plague the village forever. Meanwhile the police and local officials were frustrated, cowed, and hobbled by shrinking budgets.
 
One of the men took out a rifle and fired four shots at Boudreau and his boat.
 
Was the Boudreau killing cold blooded murder, a direct reaction to credible threats, or the tragic result of local officials failing to protect the community? As many local people have said, if those fellows hadn't killed him, someone else would have...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781586422943
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

SILVER DONALD CAMERON's literary works included plays, films, radio and TV scripts, hundreds of magazine articles, and nineteen books. Cameron had also been a professor or writer-in-residence at seven universities and Dean of Community Studies at Cape Breton University. In 2019 he was appointed the first Farley Mowat Chair in Environment at Cape Breton University. He died in June 2020, soon after completing the manuscript of Blood in the Water.

Read an Excerpt

Prologue


It was in 2013 that Phillip Boudreau was dropped—allegedly—to
the bottom of the sea, but his neighbours would not be entirely
surprised if he walked out of the ocean tomorrow, coated in seaweed
and dripping with brine, smiling.
After all, Phillip had often vanished for long periods during his
forty-three years, and he always came back to where he’d grown
up—Alderney
Point, at the edge of the Acadian village of Petit de
Grat on Isle Madame, Nova Scotia. Afterwards it would turn out
that he had been in prison, or out West, or hiding in the woods.
Perhaps the police had been looking for him and he’d have tucked
himself away in other people’s boats or trailers, or curled up and
gone to sleep in the bushes of the moorland near his family’s home,
his face coated with droplets of fog. He and his dog often slept in a
rickety shed outside his parents’ home, where the narrow dirt road
ends at the rocky shore of Chedabucto Bay. He’d even been known
to hollow out a snowbank and shelter himself from the bitter night
in the cold white cavern he’d created.
He was a small man, perhaps five-five, with a goatee and a ready
smile. He usually dressed in jeans, sneakers, a windbreaker, a baseball
cap. Whenever he was released from prison, word would go around
Isle Madame: Phillip’s out. Lock the shed, the barn, the garage. Phillip’s
out. If your boat’s missing, or your four-wheeler, talk to Phillip. Maybe
you can buy it back from him. Phillip’s out. If you want a good deal
on a marine GPS, an outboard motor, a dozen lobsters, check out
the Corner Bridge Store and Bakery. Phillip likes to hang out there.
He ties up his speedboat, Midnight Slider, at a little dock nearby.
Some people loved Phillip. He could be funny, helpful, kind. He
was generous to old people, good with animals, gentle with children.
Other people hated and feared him, though they tended to
conceal their feelings. If you crossed him he might threaten to sink
your boat, shoot you, burn down your house. He could make you
fearful for the safety of your daughter. Would he actually do anything
violent? Hard to say.
If you went to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment
in nearby Arichat, they would tell you they couldn’t do much until
he actually committed an offence. Perhaps they’d tell you that you
could get a peace bond, a court order directing Phillip to stay away
from you and your family and your property. From time to time
the Mounties would arrest Phillip for “uttering threats”—or
for
any of a dozen other offences—and
send him back to prison. But
he’d be out again soon enough, and if you’d helped put him inside,
watch out.
So most people quietly avoided Phillip, carefully steering around
him the way a lobster boat navigates a rocky shoal.
He did a tidy little business in hallucinogens and was available as
a vandal for hire, particularly with respect to lobster traps. An Isle
Madame lobster trap is a baited wooden cage weighted with rocks
and lying on the sea floor. It’s tied by a long slender rope to a buoy
that floats at the surface. The fisherman hooks the buoy, hauls up
the trap, and removes his catch; then he rebaits the trap and drops
it overboard again. The trap is worth about $100, but the value of
the lobster it catches can be in the thousands of dollars.
Nothing prevents a poacher from hauling someone else’s traps in
the middle of the night and selling the lobsters as his own. And if
the buoy rope is cut off, the owner can’t even find the trap. If I have
a grudge against you, what better way to harm you than to slide out
at midnight and cut a bunch of your traps? But if you catch me at it
the outcome won’t be pretty. So if I don’t want to take a chance on
doing it myself, I can always hire Phillip.
Phillip Boudreau was by no means the only man who ever cut
traps in Petit de Grat, but he was the dominant figure in that line of
work. He would also take credit for things he hadn’t done, just to
bolster his reputation as a crafty rascal operating by stealth and
beyond the reach of the law. A Fisheries officer who confronted him
had the tires of his car slashed. When he bought new tires, those
were slashed too. Phillip? Try to prove it. If you confronted him,
he’d just smile.
Phillip could make your life a misery—but
if he was your friend
and thought you needed something he would provide it, whether
or not he owned it. So you had to be careful about idly voicing
your desires.
And then, from time to time, he would disappear—for
days, or
weeks, or months. But he always cropped up again.
There had been attempts to kill him—conspiracies,
even. But
on June 1, 2013, he was said to have been drowned—and
not by
thugs or druggies but by highly respected local fishermen. A lot of
people thought the very idea was ridiculous. Phillip was wily and
resilient and he swam like a seal. Trying to drown him would be
like trying to drown a football. No doubt he was hiding out
somewhere.
But he was never seen again.

Table of Contents

Timeline viii

Cast of Characters x

Prologue 1

1 Her Majesty's Story 4

2 Courtroom 3: Application for Bail 12

3 A Rustic Robin Hood 28

4 Courtroom 3: Bail Granted 43

5 The Administration of Justice 46

6 Courtroom 3: Murder for Lobster 66

7 A One-Man Crime Wave 90

8 Courtroom 3: The Cockamamie Story 110

9 Courtroom 3: James Landry's Story 131

10 Visiting Brigadoon 163

11 Courtroom 3: Deliberations 181

12 Midnight Slider 200

13 Courtroom 3: Sentencing 215

14 The Nature of the Law 229

Acknowledgments 242

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Fascinating! A murder in rural Nova Scotia provides deep insights into how communities work: how they succeed, and how they can fail. Must-read for all concerned about how humans manage to live together. Or not." — Margaret Atwood

Winner of the Robbie Robertson Dartmouth Book Award at the 2021 Atlantic Book Award

Editorial Reviews

★ 09/13/2021

In this superb true crime account, Canadian author Cameron (Warrior Lawyers: From Manila to Manhattan, Attorneys for the Earth) examines a complex homicide case while questioning whether justice was done. On the morning of June 1, 2013, in the waters off Isle Madame, Nova Scotia, deckhand James Landry and two other lobster men aboard the Twin Maggies spotted notorious troublemaker Phillip Boudreau, who had a lengthy record as a lobster trap poacher, in his speedboat among their lobster pots. Afraid he was stealing from them again, Landry fired four shots at Boudreau’s boat, which then collided with the Twin Maggies. Boudreau fell overboard and was never seen again. Though the exact circumstances were in dispute, the prosecutor’s office concluded that Landry, the former owner of the Twin Maggies’ lobster license, deliberately killed Boudreau, largely based on testimony from the second deckhand. Besides thoroughly covering the trial, which ended with Landry’s manslaughter conviction, Cameron fleshes out the backstories of everyone involved, endeavors to resolve what actually happened (including who was responsible for Boudreau’s death), and explores the morality of taking the law into one’s own hands when law enforcement proves unable to offer protection. This is an instant true crime classic. Agent: Denise Bukowski, Bukowski Agency. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Shortlisted for The 2021 Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence.

"Loving, intimate look at Acadian culture. . .  [and a] courtroom drama [that] asks big questions beyond simply 'Who done it?'"
—The Minneapolis Star Tribune

“This is an instant true crime classic.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“...an absorbing study of the way an isolated community handles conflict as well as the failures of the Canadian legal system.”
—Booklist

"How a small fishing community responded to the violent death of one of its most notorious citizens . . . Cameron artfully links the central drama to broader discussions about socio-economic inequality, natural resource management, police interrogation tactics, and the consequences of a loss of faith in law and order . . . An often gripping, insightful examination of a well-known crime and the Acadian milieu in which it took place."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Silver David Cameron knew intimately the Cape Breton community where the brutal murder of a local who was vandalizing lobster traps took place. But instead of that insider knowledge giving him too narrow a focus, it enables him to see beyond the broad strokes of the story — and so bring to life ideas about power, law, vigilantism and community."
—Toronto Star

A "masterful true account of a celebrated small-town murder."
—The Globe and Mail

"It became known as the 'murder for lobster' case. But that description . . . comes nowhere near capturing the complexities of the crime and its effects on the local community. [Cameron] successfully weaves together courtroom drama, memoir, and an insightful exploration of people and place . . . While much time is spent in a courtroom, Blood in the Water is not particularly concerned with innocence and guilt. It's a book about place, relationships, and our responsibilities to each other."
—Quill & Quire

"A dramatic narrative set in a unique, lovingly drawn setting, where a story about one small community has universal resonance. This is a story not about lobster, but about the grand themes of power and law, security and self-respect."
—CBC

"A vibrant portrait of a hardscrabble town . . . Blood in the Water demonstrates how even the quietest towns are capable of explosive violence."
—Foreword Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-09-15
How a small fishing community responded to the violent death of one of its most notorious citizens, a man with a reputation for vandalizing lobster traps and threatening livelihoods.

In this true-crime saga, Cameron, who died in 2020, examines the 2013 killing of Phillip Boudreau by three Nova Scotian lobster fishermen. The author weaves together local testimony with his own commentary on the official investigation into the crime, the various trials that followed, and the complex reactions of a community exasperated by the shortcomings of the justice system. Cameron provides a rich and revealing portrait of contemporary Acadian culture, which he documents with an insider’s comprehensive knowledge. He artfully links the central drama to broader discussions about socio-economic inequality, natural resource management, police interrogation tactics, and the consequences of a loss of faith in law and order. Boudreau, a career criminal who had long preyed on his neighbors but was also known for his charisma and selective generosity, is skillfully rendered here as an enigmatic villain/victim. Cameron convincingly argues that his death illustrates how a brutal vigilantism could not help but erupt with the breakdown of “two distinct systems of law”: a community’s informal self-regulation, which lacked solidarity in restraining Boudreau, and its formal counterpart in “prosecutors and juries and courthouses,” which proved too narrow in its focus and “barely even suspects that it failed.” In the concluding chapter, the author offers a series of astute recommendations about how such systems might be reformed and points to the value of turning for inspiration to Indigenous traditions of justice. Though the momentum of the storytelling flags near the end, Cameron provides an illuminating view of the inner workings of the Canadian legal system and one of the communities it is meant to serve.

An often gripping, insightful examination of a well-known crime and the Acadian milieu in which it took place.

Kirkus Reviews