National Network for Equitable Library Service

Since 1873, the Mounties have brought the law to the furthest reaches of the Canadian frontier. Sam Steele, the "Lion of the North," was involved in almost every significant event in the Canadian West; James Macleod and James Walsh negotiated peace with the First Nations peoples. Less famous, unsung heroes risked their lives enforcing justice in the Canadian wilds. From stopping the whisky trade to policing the chaotic gold rush and patrolling the lonely North, these true tales of the early days of the Force are sure to amaze and entertain.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Canada’s prairies were still sparsely populated. Crimes such as horse theft, random murders, and prison escapes were the order of the day, and the North West Mounted Police continued to rely on their horses, their contacts, and their wits to apprehend the culprits. By the mid-1930s, a sea change in technology and police science had changed the game.

Albert Johnson was a loner, a deadly shot, who in 1932 triggered a gruelling manhunt that has become an Arctic legend. For over six weeks, amid blizzards and numbing cold, he eluded a posse of trappers, First Nations and RCMP, who for the very first time used a two-way radio and an airplane in their search. Johnson was involved in four shoot-outs, killing one policeman and gravely wounding two other men before being shot to death. Over a half-century later, an intriguing mystery remains: Who was Albert Johnson?

Do you think the smuggling of drugs and people is a new phenomenon in Canada’s west? Think again! Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, many daring smugglers carried contraband goods and people into western Canada across the US–Canada border or into BC from Asia. Smugglers of the West tells the dramatic tales of the bold criminals who smuggled Chinese immigrants, opium, liquor and a host of commodities ranging from wool to live animals to tobacco.

The legend of the Lost Lemon Mine is one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the Canadian West. In 1870, so the story goes, two prospectors named Lemon and Blackjack found gold in the rugged mountains of southwestern Alberta or southeastern British Columbia. Shortly after, Blackjack died at Lemon’s hand. The distraught Lemon left the scene of the murder and never recovered his senses—or his gold. Despite exhaustive searches by treasure seekers and historians, the mine has never been located.

Shortlisted for the 2009 George Ryga Award. This is the story of an average family that has never been the same . . . since its eldest child was swarmed and killed by her peers on a moonlit night, November 14, 1997 . . . It is the story of what sudden and horrific violence can do to a family, and how a family somehow remains intact in the face of such events. —from the prologue by Lynne Van Luven At the time of their 14-year-old daughter Reena’s murder, Manjit and Suman Virk had already been let down by both social-services and law-enforcement authorities.

When Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River, was gunned down in February 1932, he went to his death without anyone knowing who he really was—most people believed the name "Albert Johnson" was an alias. He'd eluded a well-organized, well-equipped posse for seven weeks, surviving solely on wits and determination in the bitter cold of a Canadian Arctic winter. Some 75 years later, he was being pursued again, this time by a team of filmmakers and forensic scientists bent on determining his identity once and for all.

"Whether the crimes are lurid, shocking, or downright sad, Murphy provides an unflinching look into sides of Japan that we don't usually see." ,Brian Ashcraft, journalist and author of Arcade Mania! and Japanese Tattoos

When beautiful, voluptuous Monica Dunn dies from a shotgun wound, her much-decorated police officer husband, Paul, immediately comes under suspicion. He insists he watched helplessly as his wife shot herself. Monica's politically well-connected family causes an uproar and despite passing two polygraph tests, Paul is charged with murder.

Every day, Lois Gibson is able to put power, control and a sense of justice back into the hands of violent crime victims of heinous rapes, kidnappings and murders. Gibson, herself the subject of a violent rape, uses her skills to coax from the memories of victims the most intimate details possible and, with the stroke of a pencil, reconstructs the faces of their tormentors. These eerily accurate reproductions have been directly responsible for the capture of over 700 vicious criminals for which her skills are noted in the Guinness Book of World Records.