The Curious Case of the Donnelly Catastrophe by David L Gordon

A family moves to Canada—escaping famine, oppression, the whole Irish nightmare—and they settle in a town where the local welcome committee is a bunch of Protestant vigilantes with pitchforks and a subscription to Mob Justice Monthly.
The Donnellys, they’re Catholic, they’re loud, they fight, they don’t play nice. And suddenly that’s a crime? In a country where the national pastime is passive-aggressive politeness?
But no—this is frontier Canada, baby. No Mounties riding in to save the day. Just a bunch of guys in Orange Lodge sashes deciding, “Hey, let’s skip the trial and go straight to the torch.”
And they did. Burned the house. Killed five people. And then—this is the punchline—they held two trials and couldn’t convict a soul. Not one. Because apparently, in Biddulph Township, murder is legal if you do it with enough friends.
That’s not justice. That’s a group discount on homicide.