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Bestselling true crime author Edward Butts presents a rogues’ gallery of desperadoes whose crimes range from robbery to murder. English bank robbers on the run turn up in Newfoundland. A legendary Nova Scotia detective matches wits with smugglers. In the West the Mounties track down bandits and rustlers. Vancouver police officers hunt down the bank-robbing Hyslop Gang in the 1930s. A decade later the Polka Dot Gang rampages across Southern Ontario.

A true story of a bank robber and a chilling car chase worthy of an Elmore Leonard novel or a Brian De Palma movie. Like many new arrivals to Canada, Hermann Beier came to this country with big dreams – visions of a wide-open country where hard work and entrepreneurial flair would make him rich. A charismatic handyman, martial arts teacher, and small business owner, he charmed women and earned the respect of men. He was loved in his community of Alliston, Ontario, and had a plan to make a million bucks. But when those dreams soured, Beier turned to crime to pay the bills.

From the mean streets of 1930s Depression-era Toronto comes the gripping tale of a man who became one of the nation’s most notorious criminals. Until the age of 31, Donald McDonald was only "dirty little Mickey from The Corner," the notorious intersection of Toronto’s Jarvis and Dundas Streets in a neighbourhood known in the 1930s as "Gangland." After Mickey was charged with the January 1939 murder of bookmaker Jimmy Windsor, he became a national crime figure.

A definitive compendium of Canada’s mass murderers and spree killers. Rampage: a state of anger or agitation resulting in violent, reckless, and destructive behaviour. In 1989, Marc Lépine mercilessly executed 14 female students at Montreal’s École Polytechnique to become Canada’s most notorious mass murderer. The following year spree killer Peter John Peters roamed from London, Ontario, to Thunder Bay, leaving a trail of bloodied bodies, broken dreams, and stolen vehicles.

2013 Hamilton Arts Council Literary Award — Winner, Non-Fiction The miracle of a new baby turned into a nightmare … There is something about the loss of a child that everyone takes to heart. A lot of suffering happens in this world, but when it involves a child, it touches everyone all the more and it is tolerated all the less. Empty Cradle is the writer’s personal recollection of the time leading up to and surrounding the abduction of her newborn infant, just days before Christmas.

Short-listed for the 2000 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Non-Fiction Norman "Red" Ryan was a notorious bank robber, safecracker, and killer. He escaped from Kingston Penitentiary twice - first by force, and then years later by gulling the credulous into believing that he was "reformed." The dupes of Ryan’s second emancipation included the prison’s Roman Catholic chaplain, several nationally prominent citizens, the country’s largest newspaper, and, ultimately, R.B.

Two sisters conduct a modern-day investigation into a Victorian-era murder of a toddler and discover their grandmother was a key witness. While researching her ancestry on the Internet one gloomy evening, Penny is astonished by what she finds. Urgently, she instructs her sister Sheelagh, "Search ’Slaidburn Suspected Child Murder!’ Now!" So begins a remarkable story within a story spanning more than a century.In 1885 Yorkshire, sisters Grace and Isabella, accused of murdering Grace’s secret illegitimate toddler, were on trial for their lives.

A single gunshot on Saturday night, October 6, 1894, shattered Toronto’s prevailing sense of peace and security. That gunshot took the life of Frank Westwood, a respectable young man from one of the city’s most prominent families. This unprecedented attack produced a feeling of hysteria throughout Toronto and baffled the municipal police forces. The mystery was even referred to Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. However, even the Great Detective could not solve the Westwood murder.

When Ezra Chipman brought fellow Canadian George Sternaman to board at his Buffalo home, he set in motion a nightmarish chain of events. Within months, Ezra was dead of a mysterious ailment. Then, shortly after marrying Ezra's widow Olive, George developed similar symptoms. Impoverished by George's long illness, the family moved to his mother's farm in Haldimand County, Ontario. There, in August 1896, 24-year-old George Sternaman died.

Reading of murder stimulates a powerful response. We are repelled by the horror of it, but, simultaneously, our natural curiosity is strongly aroused. We want to know who did it, and why.Most unsolved murders have no apparent motives - or too many motives. The murders of Sir Harry Oakes in 1943, one of the richest men in Canada, and Christine Demeter, found dead in a blood-soaked garage in Mississauga in 1973 - remain unsolved. In fact, history is full of unsolved murders. Who killed King William Rufus, Edward II, and the Princes in the Tower? Who was Jack the Ripper?