Kirjahaku

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (1741-1818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an ''''Indian lover, '''' Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British. The Americans declared Girty an outlaw. In U.S. history books he is a villain even worse than Benedict Arnold. Yet in Canada, Girty is regarded as a Loyalist hero, and a historic plaque marks the site of his homestead on the Ontario side of the Detroit River. In Native history, Girty stands out as one of the few white men who championed their cause against American expansion. But was he truly the ''''White Savage'''' of legend, or a hero whose story was twisted by his foes

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. The Newton Brothers’ Gang, outlaws from Texas, engage in a gunfight with bank guards on the streets of Toronto, and a former Canadian Pacific Railway engineer masterminds a sensational kidnapping in Colorado.No matter where the atrocities were committed and no matter what the circumstances, these individuals all had one thing in common: they lived on the wrong side of the law.

They were among Canada's most desperate criminals, yet their names have been all but forgotten in the annals of history - until now! In their day these lawless men made headline news. Author Ed Butts has rescued their stories from dusty newspaper pages and polished them up for today's readers in this fascinating volume. The Markham Gang introduced Canada West to organized crime long before anyone had heard of the Mafia. Lew Bevis took on the whole Halifax Police Department in a blazing gun battle. The wild Macdonald cousins went to Michigan, where they ended their violent careers as victims of a savage lynching. Reid and Davis, the notorious Border Bandits of the Roaring Twenties, were the nightmare of every banker from Manitoba to the state of Washington. This rogues' gallery of killers, robbers, and men of mystery shocked the nation, challenged the forces of law and order, and sometimes even got away with it.

This book picks up where The Desperate Ones: Canada's Forgotten Outlaws left off. Here are more remarkable true stories about Canadian crimes and criminals -- most of them tales that have been buried for years. The stories begin in colonial Newfoundland, with robbery and murder committed by the notorious Power Gang. As readers travel across the country and through time, they will meet the last two men to be hanged in Prince Edward Island, smugglers who made lake Champlain a battleground, a counterfeiter whose bills were so good they fooled even bank managers, and teenage girls who committed murder in their escape from jail. They will meet the bandits who plundered banks and trains in Eastern Canada and the West, and even the United States. Among them were Same Behan, a robber whose harrowing testimony about the brutal conditions in the Kingston Penittentiary may have brought about his untimely death in "The Hole"; and John "Red" Hamilton, the Canadian-born member of the legendary Dillinger gang.

Across Canada peace officers put their lives on the line every day. From John Fisk in 1804, the first known Canadian policeman killed in the line of duty, to the four RCMP officers shot to death in Mayerthorpe, Alberta, in 2005, renowned true crime writer Edward Butts takes a hard-hitting, compassionate, probing look at some of the stories involving the hundreds of Canadian law-enforcement officers who have found themselves in harm's way. Some, like the four RCMP officers who perished in the Northwest Territories on the 'Lost Patrol' of 1910, died in horrible accidents while performing their duties. Others, such as the Mounties involved in the manhunts for Almighty Voice and the Mad Trapper of Rat River, found themselves in extremely dangerous, violent situations. One thing is certain about all of these peace officers: they displayed amazing courage and never hesitated to make the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow citizens.

In 1607 Henry Hudson was an obscure English sea captain. By 1610 he was an internationally renowned explorer. He made two voyages in search of a Northeast Passage to the Orient and had discovered the Spitzbergen Islands and their valuable whaling grounds. In the process, Hudson had sailed farther north than any other European before him. In 1609, working for the Dutch, he had explored the Hudson River and had made a Dutch colony in America possible. Sailing from England in 1610, on what would be his most famous voyage, Hudson began his search for the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. This was also his last exploration. Only a few of the men under his command lived to see England again. Hudson’s expedition was one of great discovery and even greater disaster. Extreme Arctic conditions and Hudson’s own questionable leadership resulted in the most infamous mutiny in Canadian history, and a mystery that remains unsolved.

Who committed Toronto's Silk Stocking Murder? Why did a quiet accountant in Guelph, Ontario, murder his wife and two daughters? When did police in Alberta hire a self-styled mind reader to solve a mass murder? How did an American confidence man from Arizona find himself facing a murder charge in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia? These questions and more are answered in "Murder: Twelve True Stories of Homicide in Canada", the latest collection of thrilling true Canadian crime stories by Edward Butts. The keenly researched chapters tell the stories behind some of Canada's most fascinating murder cases, from colonial times to the 20th century, and from the Atlantic provinces, to the West Coast, and up to the Arctic. You'll meet John Paul Radelmuller, the Gibraltar Point lighthouse keeper whose murder remains an unsolved mystery; wife-killer Dr. William Henry King; and, Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, Inuit hunters whose trial for the murder of two priests became a national sensation. Butts also profiles the investigators who tracked the killers down, and in some cases sent them to the gallows in this collection of true tales that range from shocking and macabre to downright weird.

Shrouded in the mists of history and legend, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is a land of mysteries. Its waters are a graveyard for countless wrecked ships. Its lore is full of tales about treachery and murder. And it was once the haunt of pirates. Haunt, indeed! Newfoundland and Labrador has tales of the supernatural that date back centuries, to a time before Canada even existed as a nation. Here the ghosts not only lurk in old houses and forlorn cemeteries, they come up out of the sea to walk the decks of ships before the eyes of terrified crewmen. They lament out on the ice where seventy-seven men perished in the Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914. And in St. Johns the courthouse is said to be haunted by the ghost of Catherine Snow, who was hanged in 1834 for the murder of her husband. Here we find tales, both personal and historical, of ghostly haunting and unexplained happenings; from the Old Hag to headless ghosts. So read on if you dare!

During the American Revolution and the border conflicts that followed, Simon Girty's name struck terror into the hearts of U.S. settlers in the Ohio Valley and the territory of Kentucky. Girty (17411818) had lived with the Natives most of his life. Scorned by his fellow white frontiersmen as an "Indian lover," Girty became an Indian agent for the British. He accompanied Native raids against Americans, spied deep into enemy territory, and was influential in convincing the tribes to fight for the British. The Americans declared Girty an outlaw. In U.S. history books he is a villain even worse than Benedict Arnold. Yet in Canada, Girty is regarded as a Loyalist hero, and a historic plaque marks the site of his homestead on the Ontario side of the Detroit River. In Native history, Girty stands out as one of the few white men who championed their cause against American expansion. But was he truly the "White Savage" of legend, or a hero whose story was twisted by his foes?

A peaceful lighthouse at Prescott, Ontario, was once the flashpoint of American invasion in an undeclared war. Robbers called "Blackbirds" preyed on Lake Erie shipping, using false beacons to confuse their victims. The lighthouse at Oswego, New York, was the site of one of the worst disasters in the history of the United States Coast Guard. A Lake Huron lightkeeper wiped snow off the window of his lamp room, and inadvertently caused a shipwreck. A 14-year-old Detroit River lightkeeper's daughter was the heroine in a courageous rescue.Lighthouses, from the Upper St. Lawrence River to the head of Lake Superior, have played an integral role in the history, romance, lore and legends of the Lakes. The towers and their keepers bore witness to, and participated in, the dramas of war, shipwrecks, and daring rescues. All while enduring the privations of one of the loneliest occupations on earth.