The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime

From Captain Kidd to Mom Boucher

You may never again think of Canadians as law-abiding

Respected crime reporters Peter Edwards and Michel Auger have pooled their research and expertise to create The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime. Sometimes grim, sometimes amusing, and always entertaining, this book is filled with 300 entries and more than 150 illustrations, covering centuries of organized crime. From pirates such as “Black Bart,” who sheltered in isolated Newfoundland coves to strike at the shipping lanes between Europe and the North American colonies, all the way to the most recent influx of Russianmobsters, who arrived after the end of the Cold War in 1989 and are now honing their sophisticated technological skills on the Western public, Edwards and Auger enumerate the personalities and the crimes that have kept Canadian law enforcement busy. Here too are the Sicilian and Calabrian gangs, the American and Colombian drug connections, the bikers whose internal struggles have left innocent bystanders dead (and who tried to murder Auger), as well as many unexpected figures, such as the Sundance Kid, who spent years in Canada.

Arranged in alphabetical entries for easy browsing, and illustratedthroughout with photographs and drawings, this is a book that will both entertain and inform.