"Reading Curse of the Narrows is not unlike following coverage of Hurricane Katrina: the account of the initial disaster holds us riveted...there is a present-day resonance to all parts of this tale."
— New York Times
"This book is like an expensive Swiss watch, meticulously crated, perfectly assembled, and relentlessly recording, second by dreadful second, the story of one of the greatest and most lethal explosions of all time. I have been fascinated by the Halifax disaster for many years, and have always wondered who might one day produce the definitive account. Well, to Laura M. Mac Donald go the laurels: she is a genius of a researcher and a demon of a writer."
— Simon Winchester, author of The Madman and the Professor.
"A powerful moving book ... Mac Donald writes with a quiet humanity."
— Globe and Mail
Winner of the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-Fiction
Short listed for:
2006 Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction
2005 Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award
The 2005 John W. Dafoe Book Prize
