Alex Halliday, a Crown prosecutor, is having coffee with her father on a beautiful autumn day in Cork Bay, Ontario. When he is gunned down in front of her, the killer says only two words, "For Maria."

Already devastated by her father's murder, Alex faces another shock - he may not have been the person she thought he was. Reeling from confusion, grief and anger, Alex is forced to question everything. She puts herself, and her friends, in danger as they try to find answers, delving into government corruption, gang wars and a decades-old secret that Cork Bay has never fully buried.

For Maria is a sharp, funny, deeply felt debut about the lies small towns tell to survive - and a daughter brave enough to find out the truth about her father.