The dew breaker is a quiet man, a husband and father, a hard-working barber, a kindly landlord to the men living in a basement apartment in his home. He is a fixture in his Brooklyn neighbourhood, recognizable by the terrifying scar on his face. But beneath the surface of this American life lies a dangerous truth: the brutal crimes committed in the country of his birth.

As his story unfolds, we enter the lives of those around him: his devoted wife and rebellious daughter, his sometimes unsuspecting, sometimes apprehensive neighbours, tenants, and clients. And in the Haiti of the dew breaker's past, we witness his last, desperate act of violence, and his first encounter with the woman who will offer him a form of redemption-albeit imperfect-that will change him forever . . .

By the author of The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker is a wonderful novel of interconnected lives-a book of love, remorse, and hope; of rebellions both personal and political; of the compromises often necessary after the most intimate brushes with history.