When Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River, was gunned down in February 1932, he went to his death without anyone knowing who he really was—most people believed the name "Albert Johnson" was an alias. He'd eluded a well-organized, well-equipped posse for seven weeks, surviving solely on wits and determination in the bitter cold of a Canadian Arctic winter. Some 75 years later, he was being pursued again, this time by a team of filmmakers and forensic scientists bent on determining his identity once and for all. In this age of DNA testing and leading-edge forensic techniques, would the decades-old mystery finally be solved? Myth Merchant Films' Michael Jorgensen and Carrie Gour hoped so. Armed with a television production crew and a group of top forensic scientists, they headed to Aklavik, Northwest Territories. The team exhumed Johnson's body, examined the remains and harvested samples for further testing and DNA comparison with potential kin. The results were broadcast in a Discovery Channel documentary, Hunt for the Mad Trapper. Author Barbara Smith was on hand to witness it all. In this book she takes readers to the isolated northern community of Aklavik, where the legend began, recounts the tale of the manhunt that mesmerized the world, describes the exhumation and subsequent scientific analyses and shares the astonishing information unearthed in Myth Merchant's investigation.

The legend of the Lost Lemon Mine is one of the most enduring unsolved mysteries of the Canadian West. In 1870, so the story goes, two prospectors named Lemon and Blackjack found gold in the rugged mountains of southwestern Alberta or southeastern British Columbia. Shortly after, Blackjack died at Lemon’s hand. The distraught Lemon left the scene of the murder and never recovered his senses—or his gold. Despite exhaustive searches by treasure seekers and historians, the mine has never been located. In The Lost Lemon Mine, Ron Stewart revisits this intriguing story and attempts to answer the tantalizing questions posed by the often conflicting evidence. Who was Lemon? Where was the mine? Did Lemon and Blackjack steal the gold and invent a fictitious mine to cover their tracks? Stewart has meticulously researched the many versions of the story in order to separate folklore from fact, challenging readers to reach their own conclusions.

In a powerful memoir, identity theft expert Axton Betz-Hamilton tells the shocking and unsettling story of her family, betrayal, and deceit. Axton Betz-Hamilton grew up in small-town Indiana in the early '90s. When she was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen. Their credit ratings were ruined, and they were constantly fighting over money. This was before the age of the Internet, when identity theft became more commonplace, so authorities and banks were clueless and reluctant to help Axton's parents. Axton's family switched PO Boxes, changed all of their personal information, and moved to different addresses, but the identity thief followed them wherever they went. Convinced that the thief had to be someone they knew, Axton and her parents completely cut off the outside world, isolating themselves from friends and family. Axton learned not to let anyone into the house without explicit permission, and once went as far as chasing a plumber off their property with a knife. She had panic attacks throughout her formative years and often became physically sick with anxiety and quarantined behind the closed curtains in her childhood home. She began starving herself at a young age in an effort to blend in--her clothes, hair, makeup, and weight could be nothing short of perfect or she would be scolded by her mother, who had become paranoid and consumed by how others perceived the family. Years later, her parents marriage still shaken from the theft, Axton discovered that she, too, had fallen prey to the identity thief, but by the time she realized, she was already thousands of dollars in debt and her credit was ruined. THE LESS PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT US is Axton's attempt to untangle an intricate web of lies, and to understand why and how a loved one could have inflicted such pain. Axton will present a candid, shocking, and redemptive story and reveal her courageous effort to grapple with someone close that broke the unwritten rules of love, protection, and family.

This program is read by the author. A deeply-reported, riveting account of a cold case murder in Los Angeles, unsolved until DNA evidence implicated a shocking suspect - a female detective within the LAPD's own ranks. On February 24, 1986, 29-year-old newlywed Sherri Rasmussen was murdered in the home she shared with her husband, John. The crime scene suggested a ferocious struggle, and police initially assumed it was a burglary gone awry. Before her death, Sherri had confided to her parents that an ex-girlfriend of John's, a Los Angeles police officer, had threatened her. The Rasmussens urged the LAPD to investigate the ex-girlfriend, but the original detectives only pursued burglary suspects, and the case went cold. DNA analysis did not exist when Sherri was murdered. Decades later, a swab from a bite mark on Sherri's arm revealed her killer was in fact female, not male. A DNA match led to the arrest and conviction of veteran LAPD Detective Stephanie Lazarus, John's onetime girlfriend. The Lazarus Files delivers the visceral experience of being inside a real-life murder mystery. McGough reconstructs the lives of Sherri, John and Stephanie; the love triangle that led to Sherri's murder; and the homicide investigation that followed. Was Stephanie protected by her fellow officers? What did the LAPD know, and when did they know it? Are there other LAPD cold cases with a police connection that remain unsolved?

They looked impressive in their red tunics, but the members of the fledgling North West Mounted Police had little experience as they departed from Fort Garry in 1874 on a mission to bring order to the lawless territories west of the Red River. There they found a vast and rugged land ruled by whiskey traders, outlaws, and First Nations determined to defend their way of life from encroaching settlers. From remote barracks in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, the new recruits quickly rose to the job of dispatching justice to criminals such as the Plains Cree trapper Swift Runner, hanged for murder and cannibalism, and the notorious Regina crime duo of Gaddy and Raclette. They put their lives on the line and sometimes paid the ultimate price for it, as revealed in the story of Constable Graburn, shot in the back at Cypress Hills by an unknown killer, and of Manitoba’s beloved first police chief, Richard Power, who drowned while pursuing the fugitive Mike Carroll. In other stories, the frontier town of Calgary is the site of the first hanging of a white man in western Canada, while further east, a quick-witted Métis from St. Boniface earns the title of Manitoba’s first indigenous outlaw. These are amazing stories indeed of a formative time in Canada’s history and the steadfast constabulary who helped bring order to a lawless land.

Gold rush fever in the 1860s brought thousands of miners to the new territories of British Columbia and the Yukon armed with rifles, revolvers, and bowie knives. Among them were thugs and outlaws lured by the promise of easy riches. Within months of the first arrivals a provincial police force was formed—the first in western Canada—and constables recruited to preserve order in the colonies. These intrepid lawmen patrolled vast regions of Vancouver Island, the Cariboo, the Kootenays, and the Klondike. They lived in rugged conditions and brought their prisoners by horseback, stagecoach, or canoe to courtrooms that were often hundreds of kilometers away. When no judges were available they evolved their own ways of settling disputes and meting out frontier justice. This dramatic collection of stories recounts some of the most notorious cases of the period—from Boone Helm, the west’s most vicious criminal known for shooting his victims in the back and eating at least one of them, to the Wild McLeans, a gang of adolescent brothers who terrorized the Okanagan and Nicola Valley, to the Yukon’s “Christmas Day assassins," whose elaborate plan of escape failed to outsmart the clever watch of the North West Mounted Police. Together they offer a vivid profile of outlaw life and the pioneer lawmen who maintained order in a frontier land.

Lucky Luciano's posthumous memoirs may well have cost him his life. The partner of Meyer Lanksy and Bugsy Siegel, the man who created and controlled the "Commission" and the set down the rules, wanted to have his side of the story on record. It turns out that most of Luciano's criminal activity coincides with the history of the Mafia in America in the first half of the twentieth century and beyond. In preparation for a film of his life story, the famous New York gangster living in a golden exile in Naples recounted the main incidents of his life to producer Martin A. Gosch. Back in the United States, the new leaders of the Mafia were not pleased about the project that had almost reached completion and was ready to be turned into a screenplay. It is almost certain that their displeasure was communicated to "Charlie Lucky" with a hint to forget about the idea altogether. But Luciano went ahead anyway, compelled by the need to tell all and in some way offer an explanation about a life of crime. After taking a sip of espresso coffee at Naples airport as he waited for Gosch to land, Luciano died of a massive heart attack. Or was it something else' The film was never made, so this book remains the only account of the life of the man known as the "Boss of Bosses." Martin A. Gosch is deceased, and Richard Hammer lives in New York City.

Decades before Vancouver's sensational drug wars resulting from organized crime, street gangs--many associated with individual city parks--held sway over Vancouver's unruly east side. None was considered tougher or more feared than the Clark Park Gang. In contrast to the peace-and-love hippies and be-ins of the city's west side, this was a tough, wild, two-fisted crew of characters from Vancouver's post-1960s counterculture. In 1972, after a number of headline-making riots and clashes with police--including an infamous altercation outside a Rolling Stones concert--the Clark Parkers became the target of a secret undercover police gang-squad. Their hostile interactions culminated in a notorious police shooting, resulting in the death of a Clark Park Gang member. Combining meticulous research with a keen flair for storytelling, The Last Gang in Town features previously unpublished photos and police documents, as well as testimonials by surviving gang members and police officers who speak for the first time on the subject. The book is a compelling portrait of early-1970s Vancouver, and an intriguing and sensational history that puts the spotlight on the after-dark underbelly of the city's not-so-distant criminal past.

Since its first show in 2010, The Last Podcast on the Left has barreled headlong into all things horror, as hosts Henry Zebrowski, Ben Kissel, and Marcus Parks cover subjects spanning Jeffrey Dahmer, werewolves, Jonestown, and supernatural phenomena. Deeply researched but with a morbidly humorous bent, the podcast has earned a dedicated and aptly cultlike following for its unique take on all things macabre. Intheir first book, the guys take a deep dive into history's most infamous serial killers, from Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy, exploring their origin stories, haunting habits, and perverse predilections. Featuring newly developed content alongside updated fan favorites, each profile is an exhaustive examination of the darker side of human existence. With appropriately creepy four-color illustrations throughout and a gift-worthy paper over board format, The Last Book on the Left will satisfy the bloodlust of readers everywhere.