Dead-End Job
Frances works the night shift at a local convenience store, dividing her time between restocking shelves and working on her art. Her routine is broken one night when Devin comes into the store. He claims to be the son of a famous local artist and offers her advice on her drawings. Although he seems to know way too much about her, Frances decides, …
In Plain Sight
News stories of the less fortunate, the socio-economically disenfranchised in North America are too often presented to fascinate or horrify their consumers with a construct of stereotypes which commodify and intentionally erase the real lives of people “covered” by the popular media.
In compiling this collection of seven life stories from Vanc …
Toy Gun
'Toy Gun' continues the exploration of character and fate on the streets of Vancouver that began with the novel 'Stupid Crimes' (1992) and continued in 'Krekshuns' (1995). Written in the style of the "hard-boiled" detective thriller, 'Toy Gun' is very much a literary treatment of contemporary life in one of the world's most densely populated urban …
What Is a Crime?
We all have notions of what it means to commit a crime. Most of us are very much aware of the behaviours which, by law, constitute crime. Rarely, however, do we stop to consider why certain activities and behaviours are deemed criminal and others are not.
What Is A Crime? examines how we define criminal conduct in contemporary society, and how we r …
Squandering Billions
Squandering Billions is a brutally frank indictment of health spending. The book demonstrates that the absolute power of medical doctors, pharmaceutical companies, health bureaucrats, and hospital administrators enshrines mediocrity at the expense of patients. Mistakes, inefficiency, and malpractice in the Canadian health system may be causing ten …
Sobering Dilemma
This fascinating history of alcohol consumption in British Columbia focuses on two periods of harsh liquor prohibitions: first on its Native population from 1854 to 1962, and second, on the entire population, during the 1917 to 1921 period. Using formerly closed police files, Douglas Hamilton traces the scandals, corruption and crime that resulted …
Charmed
Izzy's mother works far away and leaves Izzy at home, alone with Rob the Slob. Angry at her mother and trying to deal with school, friends and the attentions of charismatic Cody Dillon, Izzy finds her life swirling out of control. Coerced into putting out to help Cody, Izzy finds she is one in a long line of girls ensnared in prostitution, with no …
Mr. Nasty
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From humble beginnings in East London to the murky world of heroin addiction and murderous gangs, Cameron White takes us on his trip through his drug-dealing life.
p class=""book_description"">He fell afoul of notorious London criminals and was forced to flee to North America; he climbed aboard a cocaine-fueled roller coaster that had him dealing w …
Zee's Way
Zee and his friends are angry that their old haunt has been replaced by stores that are off-limits to them and storekeepers who treat them with distrust. To let the merchants know what he and his friends think, Zee paints graffiti on the wall of the hardware store. After the wall is repainted, Zee decides to repeat the vandalism, but this time with …
Kat's Fall
Darcy's mother is getting out of jail. Ten years ago she was convicted of throwing Darcy's baby sister off a fifth floor balcony. Kat survived, but Darcy has spent the last decade raising his sister, giving her the love and support she has been denied by an absent mother and an uncaring father. Now, with their mother about to be released, their fat …
Overdrive
A street race ends in a tragic accident. Jake's friends tell him to run, but he doesn't know if he can—or should—run from the truth.
Jake has finally got his driver's license, and tonight he has his brother's car as well. He and his friend Mickey take the car out and cruise the strip. When they challenge another driver to a street race, a disast …
Zee's Way
Zee and his friends are angry that their old haunt has been replaced by stores that are off-limits to them and storekeepers who treat them with distrust. To let the merchants know what he and his friends think, Zee paints graffiti on the wall of the hardware store. After the wall is repainted, Zee decides to repeat the vandalism, but this time with …
The Hippie House
The "summer of love" is a time of idealistic freedom and experimentation for Emma, her cousin Megan, and the young people of Pike Creek. While her brother Eric's band practices in what Uncle Pat has dubbed the Hippie House, the girls suntan on their small lake and hitchhike into town to hang around the Drop-In Center. They find the growing crowd of …
LD
LD is the colourful biography of Louis Taylor, the longest-serving mayor in Vancouver's history; he was first elected mayor in 1910, and served off and on until 1934, for a total of eleven years. Taylor's story is also the story of Vancouver in the early decades of the 20th century, a young city experiencing a turbulent adolescence.
Louis Taylor, or …
Toronto: The Unknown City
Toronto, named by UNESCO as the world's most multicultural city, attracts thousands of tourists annually to its fascinating neighbourhoods and thriving cultural scene. But in its 250-year history, Toronto has also become a place of many intriguing secrets.
Toronto: The Unknown City delves into the lesser-known spaces and stories of the city that's n …
Class Warfare
Some of the questions that Chomsky answers in this second volume of interviews with David Barsamian include: why do nightly newscasts increasingly feature violent crimes?; how does the American political economy supercede gender and race?; when do "family values" equal increasing numbers of children in poverty?
Chomsky tackles the shibboleths of our …
Tough on Kids
Canada’s current, punishment-oriented system for dealing with young offenders does not work; it simply ensures that we jail more youth than any other country, including the United States. Green and Healy argue that a new approach is needed and offer ample local and global evidence to make the case for a shift to restorative justice. Tough on Kids …
Truth
When an adult neighbor is brutally murdered during a high-school house party, everyone in school seems to have an idea who did it, but no one will go to the police.
Jen was there and saw the body and she has her own ideas about who is responsible. As a reporter for the school TV show, she decides to try and uncover the truth and discover if a classm …
Fastback Beach
Miles Derkach is in trouble. Along with two friends, he stole a car and went joyriding. When the dust clears, he is all alone and his friends have left, leaving him to take the blame—and the punishment—while maintaining his silence. Placed on probation and sentenced to community service, Miles begins working for a man who after suffering a stro …
Reclaiming Aboriginal Justice, Identity, and Community
In his analysis of justice issues facing urban Aboriginals, Proulx pays particular attention to the situation of Aboriginal peoples in Canada, and how the current justice system has failed them. He looks at alternatives to the current system, examining in detail the Community Council Project (CCP), an Aboriginal-run diversion program in Toronto. Th …
Stolen Horses
Dorothy Pedersen sheds light on the world of equine crime in Canada. The horse-rustling business is alive and thriving, and dates to the 1800s. This collection of true stories is an intriguing look inside the nefarious aspect of the horse world and an account of the valiant people who track down stolen horses.
Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada
Why do public issues like the environment rise and fall in importance over time? To what extent can the trends in salience be explained by real-world factors? To what degree are they the product of interactions between media content, public opinion, and policymaking? This book surveys the development of eight issues in Canada over a decade -- AIDS, …
The Trouble with Liberty
Liberty Hayes has just moved to Sutter's Crossing and is the talk of the town. She has plenty of money and everyone wants to be her friend. When Liberty accuses a male teacher of sexually assaulting her, the rumors start. Val, her new best friend, is torn between believing Liberty and trusting her old friend Ryan when it comes to the truth. What is …
Ground Water
Colin Browne’s exciting new work Ground Water received a glowing review in The Georgia Straight (June 6-13, 2002 issue). In all map making, one begins with the representation of ‘ground’ and ‘water,’ and what grows or is constructed on these representations is rendered by a series of conventional symbols-the ‘elements of topography.’ …
The Beautiful Dead End
'The Beautiful Dead End' is a visceral crime thriller that takes the reader on an existential journey to the "other side" and almost back again. In a bizarre, shadowy interzone populated by disturbing characters, our anti-hero confronts the dark secrets of his past, and comes face to face with the consequences of having lived an unexamined life.
Fin …
Chasing the Story God
Some say Mike McCardell's "feel-good" stories that cap the six o'clock evening news on BCTV are the best part of the program - the only reason they watch the news. One thing is certain, over the years McCardell has earned the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of fans. In this, his first book, he presents an intriguing and often hilarious behind-the- …
Jackrabbit Moon
This hard-hitting novel explores the gritty underbelly of contemporary urban life revealing the shocking chasm between demonized media images and the everyday life of the uneducated poor. At the centre is thirty-seven-year-old Maggie MacKinnan, a star reporter at the Montreal Tribune who is wrenched from her life of respectability when she meets Ni …
Heaven
Heaven is George F. Walker’s ‘millennium play.’ Well, sort of, if we can free ourselves from the expectation of the usual science-fiction-based projection and imposition of our current personal, cultural and spiritual values on the future of the coming millennium, considered almost mandatory for authors working in this particular genre. As u …
Jailbirds and Stool Pigeons
Jailbirds and Stool Pigeons is a story of human weakness. Featuring true crime stories of the Pacific Northwest from the 1880s to 1935, this book is full of flawed characters. Tom McCarty, mentor to Butch Cassidy and Matt Warner, led his clan into a life of crime showing no remorse for crimes they committed. Charles McDonald and George Frankhouser …
Proximate Causes
The illegal drug trade in BC's Lower Mainland is a ruthless business. Danger is extreme, stakes are high, human lives are expendable. In this white-knuckled crime thriller set in the thick of drug dealing and organized crime, the action gets underway with a murder, followed by more murders and suicide. In the course of the story, a sophisticated yo …
Gas Tank & Other Stories
From the author of 'Stupid Crimes', 'Krekshuns' and 'Stand in Hell' come more fictional wanderings. 'Gas Tank & Other Stories' casts disparate characters into tumultuous scenes of moral terror, testing their courage, energy, and capacity to endure.
'Gas Tank' is not a pretty book. You won't find romance. You won't laugh until your sides ache. You ma …
Paradise by the River
Canada. 1940. In a time and country fraught with the uncertainties of war, Prime Minister MacKenzie King calls for the destruction of any “subversive elements” on the nation’s soil. The Act is supported by the majority of Canadians: anxious, patriotic and “intolerant” of fascism. After Canada officially declares war with Italy, Romano, a …
The Colour of Gold
Cree Adelaide McCauley and her two children witness the shooting of their Metis husband/ father by a crazed white miner. She attempts to nurse him back to life but he dies after several painful days. This tragedy takes place in the Robson Valley and the nearest court of justice is 300 miles away, over treacherous mountain trails, in Golden, BC. Ade …
Sojourners in the North
Early Chinese settlers in BC lived a shadowy life. Sometimes feared, always misunderstood, these people farmed, mined, and lived in central BC with hopes of returning home to their villages with riches. However, they faced crime, beatings and death in a foreign land. Chow brings us forward from those early days of Chinese settlements to present day …
There'll Be Another
There’ll Be Another delivers on the promise of the title: It is actually three books of poems in one, each offering the reader the unique new opening of an entirely different language.
The first, Heavy-Hearted in Havana, is made up of a series of poems written during McFadden’s sojourn in Cuba in the spring of 1994. His observations on the decay …
Hazardous Pursuit
On Christmas Eve 1993, after a high-speed chase over icy winter roads, an RCMP officer shot a member of the Lillooet Nation. What led up to this tragedy? Could it have been prevented? And was justice done? After eighteen months of research, Bruce Strachan has written a gripping account that asks new questions about the often strained relationship b …
Doctor Thomas Neill Cream
In 1876, Jack the Ripper, otherwise known as Canadian Doctor Thomas Neill Cream, graduated with merit from McGill’s faculty of medicine. Cream was a backstreet abortionist and managed an exclusive brothel called The Elite Club. His notorious reputation eventually forced him to flee Canada for London. He was hanged in 1892 for the murder of four …
The Death of Albert Johnson
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, …
The Trial of Judith K.
Roughly based on The Trial by Franz Kafka, this black comedy changes the lead character to a modern business woman who finds herself accused of an unknown crime. The more she delves into the bureaucratic nightmare the more her ordered, little world unravels and the more she is entangled in the increasingly obscure process.
Cast of 3 women and 4 men.