As Cross begins to break free of his borrowed role, Burke offers up one of the book's most disturbing images, a tragedy of the everyday variety that produces headlines but quickly fades from the news.
"To see racist, derogatory comments about this young man and about First Nations people online and on social media in response to this tragedy is profoundly disturbing," said the organisation's national chief, Perry Bellegarde.
Then, in December 2001, there was another tragedy as equally disturbing as the first.
We can see its operation in the disturbing deja vu of repeated tragedies untouched by shallow explanations and endless evidence.
As much as in any other scene in this meticulous, disturbing and frustrating book, the ineffable tragedy of Israelis and Palestinians resides in that brutal, heartbreaking image.
Though it's never less than involving, it grows in stature as it unfolds and ends as a more subtle and disturbing film about love, loss and tragedy than we might initially expect.
Disturbed people and disturbing images.
But ultimately the disparity in coverage over this past week just speaks to a disturbing tendency in America to write off lives and tragedies that lack narrative resonance.
Back in 1969, her husband, Donald Crowhurst, was the protagonist of the strangest, most disturbing story of its time, part adventure, part mystery, but mostly tragedy.
The widow in "Soldiering On" (Stephanie Cole), accustomed to living well, endures increasingly straitened circumstances and increasingly disturbing domestic revelations but insists she's "not the type" for tragedy: "Not quite 'Orphans of the Storm' time" is her cheerful resolution.
