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Red River girl: the life and death of Tina Fontaine /
By Joanna Jolly. 2019
On August 17, 2014, the body of fifteen-year old runaway Tina Fontaine was found in Winnipeg's Red River, wrapped in…
a duvet and weighted down with rocks. Her story caused a national outcry. This book traces the events leading to her death and describes the search for her killer, led by a dogged police detective. 2019.The billionaire murders: the mysterious deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman /
By Kevin Donovan. 2019
Barry and Honey Sherman seemed to lead a charmed life, but the world was shocked in late 2017 when their…
bodies were found together in their elegant Toronto home. First described as murder-suicide, it was a grisly scene: the two were positioned side-by-side on the deck of their basement swimming pool, suspended from belts tied to a railing. The violent deaths of the founder of one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and his wife--their net worth has been estimated at {dollar}4.6 billion--rocked the intersecting worlds of business, politics, and philanthropy. The Shermans were charity royalty, donating millions to hospitals and universities, and fixtures on the gala circuit where Honey, in particular, was beloved. But there was another side to the story. A strategic genius who built a large generic drug company -- Apotex Inc. -- Barry Sherman was a self-described workaholic, renowned risk-taker, and disruptor during his fifty-year career. Regarded as a generous friend by many, Sherman was also feared by others. He was criticized for stifling academic freedom and using the courts to win at all costs. Upset with building issues at his mansion, he sued and recouped millions from tradespeople. At the time of his death, Sherman had just won a decades-old legal case involving four cousins who wanted 20 percent of his fortune. Toronto Star investigative journalist Kevin Donovan chronicles the unsettling story from the beginning, interviewing family members, friends, and colleagues, and sheds new light on the Shermans' lives and the disturbing double murder. 2019.The Forest City Killer: a serial murderer, a cold-case sleuth, and a search for justice /
By Vanessa Brown. 2019
Fifty years ago, a serial killer prowled the quiet city of London, Ontario, marking it as his hunting grounds. As…
young women and boys were abducted, raped, and murdered, residents of the area held their loved ones closer and closer, terrified of the monster -- or monsters -- stalking the streets. Homicide detective Dennis Alsop began hunting the killer in the 1960s, and he didn't stop searching until his death 40 years later. For decades, detectives, actual and armchair, and the victims' families and friends continued to ask questions: Who was the Forest City Killer? Was there more than one person, or did a depraved individual commit all of these crimes on his own? Combing through the files Detective Alsop left behind, researcher Vanessa Brown reopens the cases, revealing previously unpublished witness statements, details of evidence, and astonishing revelations. And through her investigation, Vanessa posits the unthinkable: is it possible that the Forest City Killer is still alive and, like the notorious Golden State Killer, a simple DNA test could bring him to justice? 2019.Furious hours: murder, fraud, and the last trial of Harper Lee /
By Casey N. Cep. 2019
Reverend Willie Maxwell was a rural preacher accused of murdering five of his family members for insurance money in the…
1970s. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last victim. Despite hundreds of witnesses, Maxwell's murderer was acquitted--thanks to the same attorney who had previously defended the Reverend. Sitting in the audience during the vigilante's trial was Harper Lee, who had traveled from New York City to her native Alabama with the idea of writing her own In Cold Blood, the true-crime classic she had helped her friend Truman Capote research seventeen years earlier. Lee spent a year in town reporting, and many more working on her own version of the case. Now Casey Cep brings this nearly inconceivable story to life, from the shocking murders to the courtroom drama to the racial politics of the Deep South. At the same time, she offers a deeply moving portrait of one of the country's most beloved writers and her struggle with fame, success, and the mystery of artistic creativity. Bestseller. 2019.A searing and revelatory account of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and an indictment…
of the society that failed them. For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The highway is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis. Journalist Jessica McDiarmid investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate where Indigenous women and girls are over-policed, yet under-protected. Through interviews with those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—McDiarmid offers an intimate, first-hand account of their loss and relentless fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to 4,000—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in this country. Highway of Tears is a powerful story about our ongoing failure to provide justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, and a testament to their families and communities' unwavering determination to find it.Still: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Motherhood
By Emma Hansen. 2020
“Still is one of those rare books that catches you up and does not let you go. With grace, courage,…
and honesty, Emma Hansen adds an important voice to this tragic and too-often silenced subject. I loved this book.” —Beth Powning, author of Shadow Child: An Apprenticeship in Love and Loss A moving, candid account of one woman’s experience with stillbirth.Emma Hansen is 39 weeks and 6 days pregnant when she feels her baby go quiet inside of her. At the hospital, her worst fears are confirmed: doctors explain that her baby has died, and she will need to deliver him, still.Hansen gives birth to her son, Reid, amidst an avalanche of grief. Nine days later, she publishes a candid essay on her website sharing photos from the delivery room. Much to her surprise, her essay goes viral, sparking positive reactions around the world. Still shares what comes next: a struggle with grief and confusion alongside a desire to better understand stillbirth, which is experienced by more than two million women annually, but rarely talked about in public.At once honest, brave, and uplifting, Still is about one woman’s search for her own definition of motherhood, even as she faces one of life’s greatest challenges: learning to live after loss.The tragic and resonant story of the disappearance of eight men--the victims of serial killer Bruce McArthur--from Toronto's queer community.In…
2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that the disappearances of three men--Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Majeed Kayhan--from Toronto's gay village were, perhaps, linked. When the leads ran dry, the investigation was shut down, on paper classified as "open but suspended." By 2015, investigative journalist Justin Ling had begun to retrace investigators' steps, convinced there was evidence of a serial killer. Meanwhile, more men would go missing, and police would continue to deny that there was a threat to the community. On January 18, 2018, Bruce McArthur, a landscaper, would be arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. In February 2019, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of eight men. This extraordinary book tells the complete story of the McArthur murders. Based on more than five years of in-depth reporting, this is also a story of police failure, of how the queer community responded, and the story of the eight men who went missing and the lives they left behind. In telling that story, Justin Ling uncovers the latent homophobia and racism that kept this case unsolved and unseen. This gripping book reveals how police agencies across the country fail to treat missing persons cases seriously, and how policies and laws, written at every level of government, pushed McArthur's victims out of the light and into the shadows.Shadow of Doubt: The Trials of Dennis Oland, Revised and Expanded Edition
By Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon. 2019
A national bestseller, now updated, expanded, and revised to tell an even bigger story.On July 6, 2011, Richard Oland, scion…
of the Moosehead brewing family, was bludgeoned to death in his Saint John office. In a shocking turn, the multimillionaire’s only son, Dennis, was arrested for second-degree murder. Found guilty by a jury in 2015, Dennis Oland successfully appealed his conviction and was retried three years later.In this new revised and expanded edition, MacKinnon takes readers inside every stage of one of Canada’s most gripping murder trials. She addresses the issues with the original police investigation, Oland’s appeal and his subsequent appearance at the Supreme Court of Canada, new evidence and witnesses brought forward at the retrial, and the sensational final verdict.A reporter for the CBC, Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon covered the Oland case from the very beginning to the judge ’s final verdict. In this definitive account of a series of trials for a horrific crime, she lays bare the tribulations of a prominent family and the inner workings of the justice system that led to Dennis Oland’s contentious conviction, retrial, and acquittal.The Lynching of Peter Wheeler
By Debra Komar. 2014
At 2:21 am on September 8, 1896, authorities in Nova Scotia killed an innocent man. Peter Wheeler — a "coloured"…
man accused of murdering a white girl — was strung up with a slipknot noose. The hanging was state-sanctioned but it was a lynching all the same. Now, a re-examination of his case using modern forensic science reveals one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. On the night of January 27, 1896, 14-year-old Annie Kempton found herself home alone in the picturesque village of Bear River, Nova Scotia. She did not live to see the morning. Shortly after midnight, Annie was assaulted and bludgeoned with a piece of firewood. Her killer slit her throat three times with a kitchen knife then coldly sat and ate a jar of homemade jam before fleeing into the night. The senseless and brutal slaying devastated the town and plunged her parents into a near-suicidal abyss of guilt and grief. At trial, the prosecution's case focused on the inconsistencies in Wheeler's statements, the testimony of two children who placed Peter near the house on the night in question, and the detective's novel analysis of the physical evidence. It was one of the first trials in Canada to use forensic science, albeit poorly. Wheeler's defense team called no witnesses and did little to challenge the evidence presented. The jury deliberated less than two hours before declaring Peter Wheeler guilty of murder. The trial itself was a media sensation; every word was front page news. Several papers each ran their own version of "Wheeler's confession," an admission of guilt supposedly authored by the condemned man. Each rendition tried and failed to make sense of the conflicting timeline. With every new iteration, it became clearer that the case against Wheeler was not as airtight as the detective in charge, Nick Power, and the media had proclaimed. The Lynching of Peter Wheeler is a story of one town's rush to judgment. It is a tale of bigotry and incompetence, arrogance and pseudoscience, fear and misguided vengeance. It is a case study in media distortion, illustrating how the print media can manipulate the truth, destroy reputations, and so thoroughly taint a jury pool, that the notion of a fair trial becomes a statistical impossibility. At the height of the Victorian era, the media created a super villain in the mold of Jack the Ripper, the perfect foil for its other creation, super-sleuth Nick Power. The masterfully constructed narrative was perfect, save for one glaring detail: Peter Wheeler did not kill Annie Kempton.Dad Up!: Long-Time Comedian. First-Time Father.
By Steve Patterson. 2021
From one of the country's most beloved comedians and host of CBC Radio's incredibly popular program The Debaters comes a…
funny, poignant, and at times unexpectedly wise look at what it means to be a dad in this day and age.Steve Patterson has been thinking about dad-dom for quite a while. In Dad Up! he gives his all to be the best father possible to two young girls while imparting his hard-won wisdom and insights to readers everywhere.The youngest of five boys growing up in an Irish Catholic household, Patterson mines his childhood for any sage advice he might have picked up from his own dad. He talks with candour about the difficulty he and his wife, Nancy, had conceiving, finding humour in their experiences with the fertility clinic's automated phone calls (which Patterson calls "RoboPimp") informing them when Nancy was ovulating. He chronicles the disappointment of failing to get pregnant, only to have the miracle conception take place in Regina during Grey Cup Week, under the guiding spirit of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and comedian Brent Butt (don't ask).From that point on, Steve Patterson assumes full dad-mode, riffing on the biohazard that is changing a diaper, the absolute futility of stuffed animals, becoming a public breastfeeding warrior in the most unexpected of places, and how growing up a little boy in no way prepares you to being a father to little girls.Most importantly, Dad Up! charts the awesome experience of watching tiny infants that you somehow had a hand in creating evolve into confident and crafty little people, and the lessons that they teach along the way.The chilling true crime story of the Victorian era’s deadliest doctor “When a doctor does go wrong, he is the…
first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most puzzling murder investigations. Incredibly, at the time the words of the world’s most famous fictional detective appeared in print in the Strand Magazine, a real-life Canadian doctor was stalking and murdering women in London’s downtrodden Lambeth neighbourhood. Dr. Thomas Neill Cream had been a suspect in the deaths of two women in Canada, and had killed as many as four people in Chicago before he arrived in London in 1891 and began using pills laced with strychnine to kill prostitutes. The Lambeth Poisoner, as he was dubbed in the press, became one of the most prolific serial killers in history. In this fascinating book, Dean Jobb reveals how bungled investigations, corrupt officials and failed prosecutions allowed Cream to evade detection or freed him to kill, again and again. The first complete account of Dr. Cream’s crimes and his many victims explores how the stifling morality and hypocrisy of the Victorian era allowed this monster to poison vulnerable and desperate women, many of whom had turned to him for medical help. It offers an inside account of Scotland Yard’s desperate search for a killer as brazen and efficient as Jack the Ripper.A CBC Books Work of Canadian Nonfiction to Watch For in Spring 2022An Amazon Best Book of the Month: Biographies…
and MemoirsA Los Angeles Times Book to Add to Your Reading List in FebruaryA Seattle Times Most Anticipated Book of 2022A Vanity Fair New Book to Read this MonthA Publishers Weekly’s Top Spring 2022 History TitleA Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2022A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of 2022A Town & Country Must-Read Book of Winter 2022A Bustle Most Anticipated Book of February 2022A The Lineup True Crime Book to Be Excited About in 2022A Bookpage Most Anticipated NonfictionA Bookriot 22 Great Books to Read in 2022A CrimeReads Most Anticipated Crime Fiction of 2022 A true-crime masterpiece, this is a story of wrongful exoneration about killer Edgar Smith and the prominent crusaders who fell prey to his charm.Having spent almost half his lifetime in California's state penitentiary system, convicted killer Edgar Smith died in obscurity in 2017 at the age of eighty-three—a miracle, really, as he was meant to be executed nearly six decades earlier. Tried and convicted in the state of New Jersey for the 1957 murder of fifteen-year-old Victoria Zielinski, Smith was once the most famous convict in America. Scoundrel tells the true, almost-too-bizarre story of a man saved from Death Row by way of an unlikely friendship—developed in nearly 2000 pages of prison correspondence—with National Review founder William F. Buckley, Jr., one of the most famous figures in the neo-conservative movement. Buckley wrote articles, fundraised and hired lawyers to fight for a new trial, eventually enlisting the help of Sophie Wilkins, a book editor with whom Smith would have a torrid epistolary affair. As a result of these friends' advocacy, Smith not only gained his freedom, he vaulted to the highest intellectual echelons as a bestselling author, an expert on prison reform, and a minor celebrity—only to fall, spectacularly, back to earth, when his murderous impulses once more prevailed. Weinman's Scoundrel is a gripping investigation into a case where crime and culture intersect, where recent memory begins to slide into history and where the darkest of violent impulses meet literary ambition, human ego and hunger for fame.#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER A shocking exposé of the deadliest killing spree in Canadian history, and how police tragically failed its…
victims and survivors.As news broke of a killer rampaging across the tiny community of Portapique, Nova Scotia, late on April 18, 2020, details were oddly hard to come by. Who was the killer? Why was he not apprehended? What were police doing? How many were dead? And why was the gunman still on the loose the next morning and killing again? The RCMP was largely silent then, and continued to obscure the actions of denturist Gabriel Wortman after an officer shot and killed him at a gas station during a chance encounter. Though retired as an investigative journalist and author, Paul Palango spent much of his career reporting on Canada’s troubled national police force. Watching the RCMP stumble through the Portapique massacre, only a few hours from his Nova Scotia home, Palango knew the story behind the headlines was more complicated and damning than anyone was willing to admit. With the COVID-19 lockdown sealing off the Maritimes, no journalist in the province knew the RCMP better than Palango did. Within a month, he was back in print and on the radio, peeling away the layers of this murderous episode as only he could, and unearthing the collision of failure and malfeasance that cost a quiet community 22 innocent lives.Can't Help Falling: A Long Road to Motherhood
By Tarah Schwartz. 2022
When Tarah Schwartz miscarried for the first time at almost 5 months, she assumed this would be just a blip…
on the way to motherhood. But more miscarriages would follow, threatening her stability, her relationships, and changing her profoundly. In this memoir, Tarah puts words to excruciating loss as she recounts her unexpected and deeply inspiring journey to motherhood. As a longtime news reporter, she spent years working in front of a television camera, telling stories that reflected the power of the human spirit to survive. This time she tells her own.Gather: Richard Van Camp on the Joy of Storytelling (Writers on writing #3)
By Richard Van Camp. 2020
"Stories are medicine. During a time of heightened isolation, this bestselling author shares what he knows about the power of…
storytelling--and offers some of his own favourite stories from Elders, friends, and family. Gathering around a campfire, or the dinner table, we humans have always told stories. Through them, we define our identities and shape our understanding of the world. Master storyteller and bestselling author Richard Van Camp writes of the power of storytelling and its potential to transform speakers and audiences alike. In Gather, Van Camp shares what elements make a compelling story and offers insights into basic storytelling techniques, such as how to read a room--even on Zoom--and how to capture the attention of listeners. And he delves further into the impact storytelling can have, helping readers understand how to create community and how to banish loneliness through their tales. A member of the Tlicho Dene First Nation, Van Camp also includes stories from Elders whose wisdom influenced him. During a time of uncertainty and disconnection, stories reach across vast distances to offer connection. Gather is a joyful reminder of this for storytellers: all of us."Burning Questions: Essays and Occasional Pieces, 2004-2021
By Margaret Atwood. 2022
NATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom cultural icon Margaret Atwood comes a brilliant collection of essays--funny, erudite, endlessly curious, uncannily prescient--which seek answers to…
Burning Questions such as:Why do people everywhere, in all cultures, tell stories?How much of yourself can you give away without evaporating?How can we live on our planet?Is it true? And is it fair?What do zombies have to do with authoritarianism?In over fifty pieces Atwood aims her prodigious intellect and impish humour at the world, and reports back to us on what she finds. This roller-coaster period brought the end of history, a financial crash, the rise of Trump, and a pandemic. From debt to tech, the climate crisis to freedom; from when to dispense advice to the young (answer: only when asked) to how to define granola, we have no better guide to the many and varied mysteries of our universe.Ordinary Wonder Tales
By Emily Urquhart. 2022
A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday. “I’ve…
always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia. In essays on death and dying, pregnancy and prenatal genetics, radioactivity, chimeras, cottagers, and plague, Ordinary Wonder Tales reveals the essential truth: if you let yourself look closely, there is magic in the everyday.Send Me Into the Woods Alone: Essays on Motherhood
By Erin Pepler. 2022
Dispatches from modern motherhood by a reluctant suburbanite. Send Me Into The Woods Alone is an honest, heartfelt, and often…
hilarious collection of essays on the joys, struggles, and complexities of motherhood. These essays touch on the major milestones of raising children, from giving birth (and having approximately a million hands in your vagina) and taking your beautiful newborn home (and feeling like you’ve stolen your baby from the hospital), to lying to kids about the Tooth Fairy and mastering the subtle art of beating children at board games. Plus the pitfalls of online culture and the #winemom phenomenon, and the unattainable expectations placed on mothers today. Written from the perspective of an always tired, often anxious, and reluctant suburbanite who is doing her damn best, these essays articulate one woman’s experience in order to help mothers of all kinds process the wildly variable, deeply different ways in which being a mom changes our lives. "Easily the most validating book you’ll read this year."—Ann Douglas, author of Happy Parents, Happy Kids and The Mother of All Pregnancy BooksAutumn Bird and the Runaway
By Melanie Florence, Richard Scrimger. 2022
Two kids from different worlds form an unexpected friendship.Cody’s home life is a messy, too-often terrifying story of neglect and…
abuse. Cody himself is a smart kid, a survivor with a wicked sense of humour that helps him see past his circumstances and begin to try to get himself out.Autumn is, quite literally, on the other side of the tracks from him. Her home life is loving and secure, and she is “in” with the popular girls at school, even if she has a secret life as a glasses-wearing, self-professed comic book nerd at home. And even if the pressure to fit in at school requires hours of time spent making herself look “perfect.”Returning home from a movie one evening, Autumn comes across Cody, face down in the laneway behind her house. All Cody knows is that he can’t take another beating from his father like the one he just narrowly escaped. He can’t go home, but he doesn’t have anywhere else to go either. Autumn won’t turn her back on him, even if they never really were friends at school. She agrees to let him hide out in her dad’s art studio at night.Over the next couple of days of Autumn sneaking Cody food and bandages, his story comes out. And so does hers.Told in alternating narratives, Autumn Bird and the Runaway is a breathtaking collaboration by two of Canada’s finest writers of books for young readers. Infused with themes of identity, belonging and compassion, it’s a story that reminds us that we are all more than our circumstances, and we are all more connected than we think.The Dears: Lost in the Plot (Bibliophonic #1)
By Lorraine Carpenter. 2011
Over a decade after the release of their first album, The Dears have weathered the indie fringes, the collapse of…
the music industry as we knew it and the near implosion of the band itself, with their creative vision and gang dynamic intact. The Dears: Lost in the Plot looks at how The Dears survived the fallout, and helped launch the acclaimed mid-aughts music scene in their hometown of Montréal. The Dears: Lost in the Plot is the first book in Invisible Publishing’s new Bibliophonic series. The Bibliophonic Series is a catalogue of the ongoing history of contemporary music. Each book is a time capsule, capturing artists and their work as we see them, providing a unique look at some of today’s most exciting musicians.