The Next Rainy Day. Philip David Alexander

Long-listed for the 2006 Re-Lit Award for Best Novel Grant McRae has a loving wife, a healthy son, and a new career with the local police department. Bert Commerford has a pretty good life too, as the proud owner of Commerford & Sons Auto Service. But Bert’s sons are polar opposites: Travis is a budding junior hockey star, and Russell is a thug loaded with resentment for Bert. When tragedy befalls the Commerfords, Bert finds himself too haunted by his murky past to stop his life from buckling. Russell leaves home and almost immediately finds disaster as his path intersects with Constable McRae’s. Told from alternating perspectives, The Next Rainy Day is a fast-moving exploration of loss and of finding hope in the wake of personal disaster.