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The media is fond of using the phrase, “A usually quiet neighbourhood” when describing tragic events that often occur in what are truly peaceful communities. Indeed, most Canadian neighbourhoods enjoy a serenity that makes them enjoyable places to safely raise families or live out the golden years without fear or anxiety. However, some communities mask a more sinister underbelly, one that remains mostly unseen but exists, nevertheless. And it is wicked. And dangerous; a place law-abiding citizens dare not venture into. Journalist and author Daryl Ashby is a master researcher, with an impressive ability to extract details of outrageous criminal behaviour, injustice and intrigue from the characters who have participated in or been witness to activities that the average citizen is blissfully unaware. Folks in the central part of Vancouver Island – including Ladysmith, Chemainus and Nanaimo – may have heard rumours of drug manufacturing, outlaw bikers, unexplained disappearances, and unsolved murders, but until recently the stories were tantalizing yarns with little substantive evidence that any of them were authentic. Until recently. In his popular 2018 book, 85 Grams, Daryl Ashby began to peel back the layers of mystery surrounding the life of Second World War hero, brilliant inventor and drug manufacturer and dealer Art Williams. It was illuminating for neighbours and the larger community who may have grown up with some knowledge of the legend of Williams but dismissed much of the banter as fantasies that grew in importance as they made the rounds in the pubs and coffee shops. Ashby shone a brilliant light on a dark world that only Williams’ family, colleagues and the police knew existed. His research probed into a justice system that often failed, frequently outwitted by Williams and his criminal conspirators. Now, Daryl Ashby has upped the ante. Art Williams was a genius. Dangerous and enigmatic. Ralph Harris was no Art Williams in intellect, but what he lacked in book smarts or technical ability, he more than made up for in brute strength, street smarts and charisma. An entrepreneur – albeit a dodgy one – Harris was dangerous. He survived and thrived in the most dangerous of realms, capable of protecting his interests with deadly force. It has been said that every man’s life contains sufficient material for a book. Some stories are more compelling than others and few can match the outrageous tales provided by the central character in Nobody’s Boy, the notorious Ralph Harris. For some, the lead character’s moral code may be hard to swallow, but that doesn’t alter the fact that his life produced sufficient material to justify being recorded within these pages. This is a story about a man who defied the law, not so much for greed as was the case for many of his money-hungry associates, but for the steady infusion of adrenaline that raced through his veins. Rather than align himself with an established criminal organization, he chose to navigate his own course. No one thought to abuse Ralph’s loyalty or threaten those he held dear. To do so would be at their own peril. He was a man respected by his peers and in some cases, feared. For those who were slow to accept his ways, they would eventually realize, nothing would stand between him and his intended goal. With a treasure trove of material gleaned from court and police documents and, most vital to the story, personal interviews with Harris shortly before his death, family members and scores of police officers, bikers, drug runners and others who shared Ralph’s flamboyant life, Daryl Ashby had penned a book that exposes an underworld hereto undiscovered on Vancouver Island.
Why some individuals function well within society for the better part of their lives only to morph into a polar opposite without forewarning may forever remain a mystery. Arthur James Williams has been viewed as such a man. His path in life was predictable over four decades only to transform into one of Canada's most notorious drug lords. Highly regarded for his actions during the Second World War, he later handcrafted the Williams' Long Bow, a work of art sought after by the leaders in competitive archery; but something tweaked his psyche during this time causing his view of bureaucracy and its administrators to take a combative shift. Art Williams navigated for years beneath the judicial radar while hand selecting a crew that formed a criminal empire to take full advantage of synthetic drugs unrecognized within current legislation. The thirst for a chemical high along the North American west coast only wetted his appetite to meet the need. The thought of incarceration never daunted his aggressive approach as he considered himself superior to the best legal minds. This is the first time the story has been told in full with no supposition or literary liberty as each player from both sides of the law contributed their personal experience to expose a real life game of chess.
This historical biography--based on the life of British Columbia pioneer John Muir--tells the amazing story of a family from Scotland who came out to Canada in the late 1840s to work as "consignee" labourers for the Hudson's Bay Company. Ashby recreates the story of the Muirs' struggle to develop a place for themselves in the hierarchic colony ruled by James Douglas. With their vision of a country based on democratic principles, the Muirs fought to bring a new way of life to the West Coast. Drawing on the Muir family diaries, Ashby recounts the family's voyage from Scotland, their first years of toil in the coal mines near Fort Rupert on northern Vancouver Island, and their challenge to the Company when they initiated what may have been the first strike in Canada. Muir went on to become a magistrate with his own sense of justice for the working man, and later a Member of the first Legislative Assembly. So fascinating is Muir's personality and so intriguing is his struggle for a democratic way of life that his life's story reads at times like a novel. Ashby is to be commended for vividly bringing back to life this historic figure, a man who deserves to be better known in his own right and for his contribution to the development of the West
“True-crime writing at its finest.” —Dean Jobb, author of Empire of Deception A rich and fascinating history of Canada’s first celebrity mobster, Rocco Perri—King of the Bootleggers—and the man who pursued him, Canada’s first undercover Mountie, for readers of Erik Larson, Dean Jobb and Charlotte Gray At the dawn of the 20th century, two Italian men arrived in Canada amid waves of immigration. One, Rocco Perri, from southern Italy, rose from the life of a petty criminal on the streets of Toronto to running the most prominent bootlegging operation of the Prohibition era, taking over Hamilton and leading one of the country’s most influential crime syndicates. Perri was feared by his enemies and loved by the press, who featured him regularly in splashy front-page headlines. So great was his celebrity that, following the murder of his wife and business partner, Bessie Starkman, a crowd of 30,000 thronged the streets of Hamilton for her funeral. Perri’s businesses—which included alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution—kept him under constant police surveillance. He caught the interest of one man in particular, the other arrival from Italy, Frank Zaneth. Zaneth, originally from the Italian north, joined the RCMP and became its first undercover investigator—Operative No. 1. Zaneth’s work took him across the country, but he was dogged in his pursuit of Rocco Perri and worked for his arrest until the day Perri was last seen, in 1944, when he disappeared without a trace. With original research and masterful storytelling, Cole details the fascinating rise to power of a notorious Prohibition-era Canadian crime figure twinned with the life of the man who pursued him.
Edwin "Bud" Shrake is one of the most intriguing literary talents to emerge from Texas. He has written vividly in fiction and nonfiction about everything from the early days of the Texas Republic to the making of the atomic bomb. His real gift has been to capture the Texas Zeitgeist. Legendary Harper's Magazine editor Willie Morris called Shrake's essay "Land of the Permanent Wave" one of the two best pieces Morris ever published during his tenure at the magazine. High praise, indeed, when one considers that Norman Mailer and Seymour Hersh were just two of the luminaries featured at Harper's during Morris's reign. This anthology is the first to present and explore Shrake's writing completely, including his journalism, fiction, and film work, both published and previously unpublished. The collection makes innovative use of his personal papers and letters to explore the connections between his journalism and his novels, between his life and his art. An exceptional behind-the-scenes look at his life, Land of the Permanent Wave reveals and reveres the life and calling of a writer whose legacy continues to influence and engage readers and writers nearly fifty years into his career.
"This book combines text and image to reveal the real-life origins of the place where "the women are strong, the men are good-looking and the children above average." Keillor meditates on the enduring culture of the county and on the years he spent there as a young writer and an outsider. And a short story of Lake Wobegon, "October," appears here for the first time in print."--BOOK JACKET.
Covering the same ground as the major motion picture The Free State of Jones, starring Matthew McConaughey, this is the extraordinary true story of the anti-slavery Southern farmer who brought together poor whites, army deserters and runaway slaves to fight the Confederacy in deepest Mississippi. "Moving and powerful." -- The Washington Post. In 1863, after surviving the devastating Battle of Corinth, Newton Knight, a poor farmer from Mississippi, deserted the Confederate Army and began a guerrilla battle against it. A pro-Union sympathizer in the deep South who refused to fight a rich man’s war for slavery and cotton, for two years he and other residents of Jones County engaged in an insurrection that would have repercussions far beyond the scope of the Civil War. In this dramatic account of an almost forgotten chapter of American history, Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer upend the traditional myth of the Confederacy as a heroic and unified Lost Cause, revealing the fractures within the South.