Includes graphic photos Peter Woodcock was Canada's youngest serial killer when at the age of seventeen he brutally raped and murdered two boys and a girl between the ages of four and nine. He was never put on trial by "reason of insanity" and instead was confined for 34 years in a criminal psychiatric facility and offered treatment. On July 13, 1991 he finally had earned his first day pass ever and allowed to briefly go off the facility grounds into town to visit a DQ for an ice cream. What Woodcock did within the first hour of his first day pass stunned many people and made national headlines.
Peter Carey is one of the most respected novelists writing today. Since the original edition of this book, Carey's fiction has reached a far wider international audience: he has won the Booker Prize for the second time with True History of the Kelly Gang, while Oscar and Lucinda has been made into a successful feature film. Bruce Woodcock's revised and expanded critical study now includes detailed readings of the recent novels, Jack Maggs and True History of the Kelly Gang, seeing them as the finest productions of a writer who continues to surprise and delight his readers with inventive creations and unique imagination.
When Steve Smith set out to hitchhike from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario to Canada’s west coast back in 1968, he was just an eighteen-year-old hippie with an appetite for adventure. But a short way into his journey, a reckless decision to steal a car landed him in police custody. Afraid of getting caught with the two tabs of acid in his pocket, Steve popped them into his mouth. It was one of the worst decisions of his life. Mistaking his drug trip for a mental breakdown, the authorities placed him in Ontario’s notorious Oak Ridge mental health facility. While there, not only did he find himself shoulder-to-shoulder with people like notorious child killer Peter Woodcock and mass murderers Matt Lamb and Victor Hoffman, he also fell into the hands of someone worse: Dr. Elliot T. Barker. Over the next eight months, Barker subjected Steve and the other patients to a battery of unorthodox experiments involving LSD, scopolamine, methamphetamines, and other drugs. Steven also experienced numerous other forms of abuse and torture. Following his release, Steve continued to suffer the aftereffects of his Oak Ridge experience. For several years, he found himself in and out of prison—and back to Oak Ridge—before he was finally able to establish himself as a successful entrepreneur. Once he began investigating what happened to him during his youth, not even Steve was prepared for what he would discover about Barker, Oak Ridge, and one of the darkest periods in Canada’s treatment of mental health patients. The question remains: Was Oak Ridge and Dr. Barker trying to cure psychopaths or trying to create and direct them?
Canada is seen as a peaceful place, but this wake-up call shows us that there have been more than 60 serial killers in our history. Limited time offer. There are more than 60 serial murderers in Canadian history. For too long awareness of serial murder in Canada has been confined toWest Coastbutcher Clifford Olson and the "Schoolgirl Murderers" Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, along with the horrific acts of pig farmer Robert Pickton. Unlike our American neighbours, Canada has been viewed as a nation untouched by the shadow of multiple murder. Then came Colonel Russell Williams and his bizarre homicides and serial home invasions, which were sensational news worldwide on the Internet and television and in scores of newspapers and magazines. The reason for Canada’s serial killer blackout is clear: until now such information has never been compiled and presented in a single concise work. ColdNorth Killers is a wake-up call. This detailed and haunting account of Canada’s worst monsters analyzes their crimes, childhoods, and inevitable downfalls. It is an indispensablecompendium for any true crime lover, criminologist, or law-enforcement officer.
In this madcap journey, a bestselling journalist investigates psychopaths and the industry of doctors, scientists, and everyone else who studies them. The Psychopath Test is a fascinating journey through the minds of madness. Jon Ronson's exploration of a potential hoax being played on the world's top neurologists takes him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the madness industry. An influential psychologist who is convinced that many important CEOs and politicians are, in fact, psychopaths teaches Ronson how to spot these high-flying individuals by looking out for little telltale verbal and nonverbal clues. And so Ronson, armed with his new psychopath-spotting abilities, enters the corridors of power. He spends time with a death-squad leader institutionalized for mortgage fraud in Coxsackie, New York; a legendary CEO whose psychopathy has been speculated about in the press; and a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane who insists he's sane and certainly not a psychopath. Ronson not only solves the mystery of the hoax but also discovers, disturbingly, that sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.
An inspirational story which shows that even something small can make a big difference. When the last park in the city is to be closed, Poppy knows that she and the Blooms have to do something. Scattering their magic as they go, the flower friends speed on their mission. Will they save the park? ‘Fiona Woodcock’s beautiful illustrations perfectly capture the contrast between a grey cityscape and the joyful kaleidoscope that fresh flowers can add… This gentle little story is a delight from start to finish’ Books for Keeps ‘A beautifully illustrated picture book which feels like a real visual treat… The artwork is stunning and very original and I think this makes it stand out as an interesting read for small children.’ Being Mummy blog ‘Blooming wonderful!’ Red Reading Hub PRAISE FOR HIDING HEIDI: ‘Playful imagery and Heidi’s eventual recognition of her friends’ talents add up to a warm story about compromise and common ground’ Publishers Weekly ‘A very attractive addition to the picture book shelves from an artist to be watched’ Books for Keeps
