Book Reviews

LOOSE ENDS A Jack Taggart Mystery

"A good read with its sudden twists, romance, terror, a little humour, and realism..."

Don Easton begins his novel with a pastoral country setting complete with a happy farm family, the Andersons. All too soon this pleasant scene is shattered by the intrusion of a drug deal held in an abandoned farm house located a short bike ride from the Anderson Place and an hour's drive from Vancouver. Maggie and Ben Jr. were playing in the abandoned farm house and were callously murdered thus eliminating either child as a potential witness who might identify the "The Suit", an important inside advisor (mole) working for the bikers.

Easton soon leads the reader into the world of the drug trade in Vancouver; which is, in large part, organized, managed, and enforced by the biker gang known as the Satans Wrath Motorcycle Club.

Jack Taggart, the main character, is an undercover RCMP officer who has to employ an unorthodox aproach to attempt to identify and bring those responsible to account for the murder of his niece and nephew, the Anderson children. In the course of this story there are other gang ordered "terminations of various people in the drug trade both bikers and non-bikers alike. One important element in the story is, understandably, Jack's personal conflict of interest in investigating a personal interest, notwithstanding investigating, a matter which he was told to do no more than observe or carry on a survaillence. Not to forget Jack's conflict between following the official rules, policy, and procedure in a drug or drug-related murder case; while taking into the unwritten "rules" under which the drug trade and bikers operate.

Another intriguing element is the continuing efforts of both sides, police and bikers, to infiltrate each other's organization to gain information from inside informants; and at the same time check on its own membership in order to stop 'leaks' and to ferret out and deal with such informants.

This is a great read with its sudden twists, romance, terror, a little humour, and realism as the author leans upon his many years as an undercover Mountie. Yes, their are some details of perversion and prostitution, but not enough to miss this opportunity for a compelling story. I'll look forward to Don Easton' next novel.

Click here to buy this book on our website.

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Where Shadows Linger

The untold story about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into Canada's most notorious serial killer - Clifford Olson.

Find out how the Mounties investigated this serial killer. How RCMP Superintendent, Bruce Northorp fingered Olson weeks before his arrest. Five more teenagers died in the meantime. It may be true that the Mounties "Always get their Man" - but did they get this one in time?

Get the book behind the CTV and BBC TV Movie "The Investigation".

Author, Les Holmes was determined to bring closure to Canada's most horrifying serial killer case to date. With the help of Superintendent Bruce Northorp, who was in charge of the Olson hunt at the time of the arrest in 1981, the reader gets a unique insight into the murders and their investigation.

Clifford Olson was the most hated man in Canada when he confessed his crimes. Much conjecture surrounded his arrest. The agreement to pay $100,000 for him to reveal the locations of his victims led to tension and mistrust within the RCMP. Now, through his exclusive access to Bruce Northorp, Les Holmes' story uncovers the inner thoughts of one of the RCMP's most respected officers.

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Scarlet Tunic

Go on patrol with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Find out what it is like to be a police officer...

"It is difficult to imagine a more difficult occupation in today's society than that of police officer. In Scarlet Tunic, a 27-year-old veteran of the Mounted Police, Robert Gordon Teather, sets out to demonstrate the complexities of the profession and the fact that police officers are as flawed as the rest of us...

Teather ... gently nudges the surface of some of the profoundly disturbing aspects of daily policing. For example, the book strongly suggests that many police officers relish violent acts, chiefly committed in self-defence, almost to the point of sadism. A female officer brandishes a severed ear, which she bit off an attacker, to prove her toughness to occasionally skeptical male colleagues. Have these individuals been co-opted by the dark world they police? In some cases, the answer seems to be yes."
Review by - Steven R. Hewitt

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