One thing I’ve always considered to be important for writers is to be able to use their previous knowledge and skills in their writing. For me, that began with transferring my nonfiction research skills to historical fiction. Over the years, however, I’ve followed my bliss more or less and written whatever story crept into my mind. My new book is no different in that respect, but it has an added element of past knowledge, namely, my background in ethics. (Bet you didn’t see that one coming!)
When my novel We Came From Away was named a finalist for the 2025 Stephen Leacock Medal for Literary Humour earlier this year, some of my former students probably thought it was a clerical error. After decades of teaching ethics and corporate communication, I was about as funny as a midterm exam.
My new novel, though? This is the book they always suspected was hiding in me.
Edgy, baffling, intellectually unsettling, my new novel, His Second Mistake, challenges everything you ever thought you believed about what is good, what is evil and whether good is right and evil is bad.
The story:
Rachel Underwood has it all—wealth, influence, and a gleaming reputation as one of Toronto’s most admired crisis managers and philanthropists. But beneath the charm lies a lethal secret. Driven by her abiding sense of justice, Rachel is also a killer, methodically hunting men who abuse women and evade accountability.
Detective Hannah Novak, eager to prove herself in homicide, finds her own sense of justice tested when a string of suspicious deaths points to a woman’s hand—and to someone dangerously close to her.
What follows is a tense and deeply personal game of cat and mouse between two women bound by friendship, loyalty, and lies. As the truth edges closer, each must decide how far she’s willing to go—and what price she’s willing to pay—for justice.
His Second Mistake is a gripping, disquieting exploration of power, betrayal, and the ethics of vengeance—where right and wrong blur, and friendship may be the deadliest weapon of all.
Patricia J. Parsons 