Snow Globe

It began on Friday, January 17, 2020, as a record-breaking “Snowmageddon” blasted Newfoundland and Labrador with 130-kilometre-an-hour winds and buried St. John’s under seventy-six centimetres of heavy flakes — on top of the metre already piled on the ground. Thousands of people were trapped inside their homes with no electricity as they waited for the armed forces to help dig them out. Others snowboarded along major streets. The city was shut down for a week.

This is the setting for Lisa Moore’s fifth novel, in which a young man, Xavier, is left fighting for his life after being beaten and stabbed as the superstorm hits the province. His parents, Jules and Joe, are away on vacation at the time. His mother manages to get a last-minute flight home, but his father finds himself stuck in limbo when the blizzard halts further air traffic. Jules must deal with Xavier — and...