From page one, A Fit Month for Dying, the final novel in a trilogy chronicling the trials of the Corrigan family, promises heartbreak. “Sooner or later life’ll break the heart of ye,” warns Bertha Corrigan, grandmother of narrator Tess. “It’ll break the heart of ye into pieces smaller than the putty mounds of a tinker’s dam.”

Tess is the daughter of a single mother nicknamed “Poor Carmel.” She’s also Newfoundland’s first female member of the House of Assembly. Twice divorced, Tess still carries a torch for Dennis Walsh, a childhood sweetheart who was about to leave the priesthood for her when a car crash took his life.

Though the novel’s material is ponderous, Dohaney’s unfailing ear for dialogue and use of dark humour create characters almost too vibrant to be contained by the page. Indeed, A Fit Month for Dying – which can be enjoyed without reading the preceding novels – is easily the best of the trilogy. The characters are more deeply themselves, the story moves with its own swift energy, and Dohaney’s turns of phrase are more finely calibrated for emotional impact.

There are the odd occurrences of revisionist history. In this book, Tess recounts her election as an easy victory, and remembers how happy she was about to be with Dennis Walsh; in To Scatter Stones, her victory is hard-won and startling, and she is on the verge of telling Dennis not to leave the priesthood for her. Readers will overlook these inconsistencies, though, as this version of Tess is the most three-dimensional yet.