Book Review
Title: Blood in the Water: A True Story of Revenge in the Maritimes by Silver Donald Cameron
Genre: Non-Fiction, Crime
Rating: 3 Stars
I don’t often read non-fiction but true crime always managed to win me over. This book follows a murder that took place in June 2013, in Cape Breton, the victim is Phillip Boudreau who was killed on his boat, the Midnight Slider by two Landry cousins and skipper Dwayne Samson, all of whom were fishermen. Just from this brief synopsis I was hooked already and I couldn’t wait to get into the book. We get to know Philip as a person and there is a lot of duality about him. He seems to be the kind of person that is great to know if he is your friend but he can make your life a living hell if you are his enemy. There also seems to be a lot of speculation that other people often hired Philip to do things they didn’t want to do themselves like sabotaging lobster traps as that would cost rival fisherman hundreds of dollars to replace the traps and thousands of dollars in lost revenue for the lobsters they weren’t able to sell and considering this over time it doesn’t take much imagination to see a person snapping over these slights.
The three men accused of Philip’s murder; Craig, James and Dwayne are arrested and details about the murder begin to emerge primarily through Craig who has turned on the other two. As the bail hearings are conducted we get to see from a wider perspective who these people are, it seems that all three are upstanding members of the community that are well liked. There are several people who aren’t family or friends that come forward to say that they would post bail for them and offer them both housing and employment while they were on bail. This is important because in cases like this the accusers are often vilified by the press but these are seen as anti-heroes, normal men who were pushed to their limit by a known criminal and the situation got out of hand. The bail hearings become something of a serial drama but ultimately bail is denied because the Judge wasn’t 100% sure that the plans laid out to him where going to effective in containing and monitoring these men but he does say that if alternate plans are presented to him he will reconsider his decision on bail. So far, Blood in the Water is playing out like a dramatized version of the actual events which make it very interesting to read and with the accused now remanded to prison while they wait for the trail to begin I was eager to see what actually happened as I had no prior knowledge of this murder so I was heavily invested in the story. As we continue to see the struggle over bail for the murderers we also get a lot of testimonies from people that knew Philip that changes him from a petty criminal to a real-life Robin Hood. Philip spent most of his life committing petty crimes like theft in order to help others who had asked him for help. Most people also agree that Philip didn’t see what he was doing as wrong and even when he was evading the police it was more of a game rather than a conscious decision.
After a year and a half, the trail begins into the murder of Philip and the evidence is beginning to be presented to the jury. Despite this the lawyers have a field day decided what is and isn’t admissible in court given the fact that there is no body and a lot of the evidence relating to what was said on that night is hearsay which means a lot of isn’t possible to use in court. They do have some evidence but it seems to contradict what was said that night, for example, Philip supposedly shouted that his leg was broken but the evidence shows the bullets if they had hit Philip would have been at ankle height and there was no evidence in the boat of Philip being injured. There is also a lot of history that prove Philip was a strong swimmer and that he normally disappears for weeks and months at a time which raises the question over whether Philip is actually dead. The whole trial literally plays out like a crime drama show with the witnesses, cross-examination as well as the presentation of the evidence but eventually the jury is sent off to deliberate on whether these men should be convicted before the murder of Philip. After almost two full days of deliberation the jury returns the verdict of manslaughter and the sentencing takes place. With this the case is effectively closed even though Philip’s body wasn’t found but it was about the crime but about the people, their history and the location in the build to the murder and what happened after. Overall, Blood in the Water was an interesting true crime read but at times it did stray into the dramatic when I would have preferred it to stick to fact.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
I received this review copy from Edelweiss
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