Publication Date: November 23, 2005:
On November 29, 1990, two construction workers found the body of 17 year old Saulteaux First Nations tribe member, Neil Stonechild. His friend, Jason Roy, last saw him in the back of a police car on November 25, 1990. The initial inquiry into his death by the Saksatoon police ruled it to be accidental and not as a result of foul play. When a surviving victim of a Starlight Tour came forward, it led to the reopening of the case in 2000 and would shine a horrible and cruel light on the practices of certain Saskatoon Police Officers and the full coverage they received of the “Blue Curtain,” a practice in which a police officer doesn’t inform on his fellow officer.
In the wake of police brutality in the United States, I see a lot of people from other countries saying “We feel for you but we can’t relate.” In Canada, we sit atop the United States and look down our noses at our seemingly less evolved neighbors. What we completely ignore when doing that is the treatment of First Nations people in Canada which, frankly, is what allowed the Saskatoon Police to go unchecked as long as they did and, maybe still do. Our First Nations people don’t have potable drinking water and scores of women go missing without the authorities taking their disappearance seriously (Go to this website for information about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls). Continue reading Human Rights Day 2020: Starlight Tour; the Last, Lonely Night of Neil Stonechild by Robert Renaud and Susanne Reber
The Cabinetmaker by Alan Jones, the murder of the son of a cabinetmaker is John McDaid’s first case when he is made a detective with the Glasgow Police. Despite the passing of decades in search of justice, the cabinetmaker and McDaid build an unlikely bond. Is this murder mystery destined to remain unsolved?
In Visits by John Phelps, Tony Lansing is 60 years old and has decided that it’s time to fight back. For years, he’s brushed things off but he’s ready to make a list and make sure that everyone on it gets what they deserve. His ex-wife, old friends and whoever has done him wrong had better start watching their backs because Tony Lansing is out for blood.
In Blood Pool by Jan Ryder, Sam Shelley’s husband is dead and he’s left her the property that has passed down through the males of the family for generations. People in the small English village are resentful that the legacy has been left to an outsider, and some will even go that extra mile to make sure it gets in the right hands. In the meantime, Sam’s old friend has a dangerous secret that could get both of them killed.