Ian Colford, our Collections Librarian and author of the wildly successful story collection Evidence (see our post on this) has spent his sabbatical completing a novel, which has just been accepted for publication. Ian says:

“Porcupine’s Quill is scheduling my new novel for publication for fall 2011. The tentative title is “The Crimes of Hector Tomás.”

I spent 8 years writing this novel. However, in 2003 I set it aside in order to write the stories that became Evidence. I workshopped portions of this novel at the Humber School for Writers.

Briefly, “The Crimes of Hector Tomás” chronicles the life of Hector from his childhood to young adulthood. The story is set in the recent past in an unnamed South American country. The main action takes place during a period of political instability and civil unrest.

Against his will, Hector is drawn into his country’s civil conflict. Accused of terrorism, he is arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. After a period of confinement he is recruited into the army’s “Special Forces” who are tasked with keeping order “by any means possible.” At the crux of the book is an
unspeakable act that Hector must commit in order to survive. The story also follows the fates of several other characters.

The novel is an attempt to show in dramatic terms how circumstances can force good people to commit criminal acts. “