True Cases

Rough & Messy Justice vividly portrays Alberta's Crowsnest Pass of 1920, a rugged Rocky Mountain region shaped by its mining economy and diverse culture. An armed CPR train robbery spirals into a deadly shootout at the Bellevue Café, where police clash with Russian outlaws fresh from Montana's mines. A surviving bandit escapes, triggering a relentless manhunt. When captured, his trial becomes a spectacle marred by overt racism in the press, law enforcement cover-ups, and a judge and jury riddled with bias. With a weak defence lawyer, unreliable witnesses, and critical legal missteps, the proceedings lead to a tragic execution. This gripping true crime account exposes systemic corruption, racial prejudice, and the fatal flaws in Canada's early justice system. By confronting these injustices, Rough & Messy Justice challenges assumptions about fairness and equality under the law, offering an exploration of historical crime and consequence.

Oridinary Criminals is a collection of stories by probation officer Doug Heckbert about real people who have been convicted of real crimes and who have been on probation, on parole, or in prison. The story, "Go Ahead and Shoot Me," for example, is about  a woman who shot her husband upon his insistence and who, like many other subjects in the book, have come to see their offences as being pretty stupid. These stories show the human side of criminals  not just the  crimes they committed. As "Go Ahead and Shoot Me," this is Book 7 in the Durvile True Cases series.