We Bury Nothing
In a story that moves back and forth through time. Kate Blair explores World War II POW camps in Canada and family secrets in We Bury Nothing.
Erich Stein is a prisoner of war in 1943 imprisoned in camp 43 in Canada. Keira Martin is a teenager participating in a summer internship at Camp 43 in the present day, exploring the death of Erich Stein as her research project. When faced with the untimely death of another student and continuing to explore the death of Erich Stein, Keira uncovers some deeply held family secrets that could alter the course of her summer and ultimately her life.
Kate Blair has taken a new direction when delving into the atrocities of World War II through the setting of this story at Camp 43, a fictional POW camp that was inspired by the very real camps located in Canada during the second world war. Before reading this story, I wasn’t aware that Canada housed military prisoners of war so I think that through this historical fiction story, readers will be able to gain more insight into what the war was like for those still in Canada.
I love how the story bounced back and forth through time and took on some of the mainstream and newsworthy topics of today and highlighted how many things still really haven’t changed in the last 80 plus years. Kate Blair focuses on anti-2SLGBTQ+ sentiments from the past that continue to the present and also highlights the far-right agenda we see playing out in the news cycle daily through protests over drag queen story times and book banning sharply felt throughout North America. I love that this book is set in Canada as I think we may have a naive sense that these things only happen in the United States but they are happening right across our own country as well and it’s important to recognize it and fight against it.
We Bury Nothing is a historical fiction mystery which very adeptly turns readers around so that we are never quite sure, until the very end, who are the true perpetrators of the crimes. This is not a happy ending story. Kate Blair does not sugar coat in this story. It's real and tragic, which was the story of the second world war and the fall out from the hate of the time.
