National Network for Equitable Library Service

These eight true tales explore the dark side of 20th-century prairie history. A Saskatchewan farmhouse is burned to the ground to conceal the brutal murders of a family of seven. A German prisoner-of-war camp in Medicine Hat is the scene of savage Nazi killings. A convicted killer is given a day pass out of prison for his birthday, only to escape and kill again. From a deadly Prohibition-era shootout to a landmark case solved with DNA evidence, these are riveting stories of murderers and the people who fought to bring them to justice.

The far-ranging officers of the BC Provincial Police covered an area larger than California, Oregon, and Washington combined. In Yukon, a force of nineteen Mounties were charged with upholding the law across all of Arctic Canada. Set in frontier towns and rural communities from Vancouver Island to the Rocky Mountains to Herschel Island, Yukon, the stories in this collection reveal the real-life hardships and triumphs of policing through the boom and bust years of the early twentieth century.

Gold rush fever in the 1860s brought thousands of miners to the new territories of British Columbia and the Yukon armed with rifles, revolvers, and bowie knives. Among them were thugs and outlaws lured by the promise of easy riches. Within months of the first arrivals a provincial police force was formed—the first in western Canada—and constables recruited to preserve order in the colonies. These intrepid lawmen patrolled vast regions of Vancouver Island, the Cariboo, the Kootenays, and the Klondike.

Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith was the victim of a 1924 tragedy that ignited racial tension in a very young Vancouver. At the core of the issue were the mysterious circumstances surrounding Smith's death, particularly the fact that the only other adult in the house at the time was the Chinese houseboy. When Smith's death was followed by the assassination of Davie Lew, a well-known Chinese man, it only strengthened the European view that Vancouver's Asian community was a hotbed of violence and corruption.

In 1874, the newly formed North West Mounted Police marched west to shut down unscrupulous liquor traders who had devastated the lives of many First Nations people. The Mounties` famous trek heralded over 50 years of "whisky wars" in the Canadian West. Author Rich Mole traces the turbulent history of alcohol, temperance movements and prohibition between 1870 and the 1920s through the stories of those who suffered and profited from the West`s insatiable thirst for liquor.

They looked impressive in their red tunics, but the members of the fledgling North West Mounted Police had little experience as they departed from Fort Garry in 1874 on a mission to bring order to the lawless territories west of the Red River. There they found a vast and rugged land ruled by whiskey traders, outlaws, and First Nations determined to defend their way of life from encroaching settlers.

Bill Miner, the gentleman bandit, enjoyed more popularity in his day than Jesse James or Billy the Kid. He robbed stagecoaches and trains across California, Colorado, Arizona, Georgia, Washington State and British Columbia until just before the First World War, by which time the public actually wanted him to escape the police. Reporters visited him during his time in jail and dubbed him “Old Bill Miner.” When he died in Georgia, where he had committed the state’s first train robbery, locals chipped in to pay for his funeral.

From 1858 until 1950, the BC Provincial Police were responsible for maintaining law and order in British Columbia. Numbering only 100 men in 1900, they patrolled this vast area by horseback, boat, snowshoes and dog team until the arrival of the train, automobile and airplane. In these classic cases from the files of the BC Provincial Police, former deputy commissioner Cecil Clark brings to life the lawmen who upheld the peace and the criminals who disrupted it. A Texas gambler thinks he has committed the perfect murder, but his plans are foiled by Barkerville’s barber.

Ten gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknown man are found in a septic tank near Tofield. These baffling Alberta cases show how dogged, old-fashioned detective work combines with modern forensic techniques in the search for the truth.

From the days of the fur trade, one constant thread weaves its way through the tumultuous history of frontier British Columbia, Washington and Oregon—the war over liquor. Between 1840 and 1917, the whisky wars of the west coast were fought by historical heavyweights, including Matthew Baillie Begbie (the “Hanging Judge”) and Wyatt Earp, and a contentious assortment of murderous whisky traders, angry Natives, corrupt policemen, patronage-loving politicians and trigger-happy drunks.Liquor was a serious and life-threatening issue in 19th-century west coast settlements.