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This is a collection of true Newfoundland and Labrador stories about crime and punishment on land and sea. Included here are tales of murder, mutiny, and smuggling on the high seas, as well as riots, assaults, and frauds perpetrated in some of the strangest criminal cases this province has ever seen.

The Mounties don’t always get their man. There is a folk legend living in Bay Bulls, on the Southern Shore of Newfoundland, by the name of Leo Crockwell. He ranks up there with legends like D. B. Cooper and Albert Johnson, the Mad Trapper of Rat River. This is the story of how Leo Crockwell took on one of the most revered police forces in the world, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and walked away unscathed.

Rumrunners is a history of the smuggling trade between the French Island colonies of St. Pierre and Miquelon and the United States, the Bahamas, and Newfoundland. The distribution of contraband alcohol has always been an element of the culture of Newfoundland and Labrador. However, with the advent of the American Prohibition era (1919–1933), the French Islands’ illegal practice took on worldwide proportions.

Mr. Big is the shocking true story of a murder investigation in Newfoundland and Labrador that forever changed the face of the Canadian justice system. On August 4, 2002, three-year-old twin girls Karen and Krista Hart drowned in Gander Lake. They had gone there with their father. He said it was an accident, but the police were convinced Nelson Hart had killed his daughters that day. With not enough evidence to make an arrest, the RCMP launched a $500,000 “Mr. Big” sting operation to try to get a confession.

Botwood, Newfoundland and Labrador, 1958 In the midnight blackness of a cold November night mixed with rain in snow, three RCMP officers entered a restaurant by way of an upstairs window. Rumours around town had been rampant. The owner’s son had been missing for days. Father and son hated each other. He had been stabbed, or shot, and had been dumped somewhere, or he had been cut into pieces and put into a freezer to be secretly disposed of later.

Shortlisted, Democracy 250 Atlantic Book Award for Historical WritingOn a frigid February evening in 1805, Amos Babcock brutally murdered Mercy Hall. Believing that he was being instructed by God, Babcock stabbed and disembowelled his own sister, before dumping her lifeless body in a rural New Brunswick snowbank. The Ballad of Jacob Peck is the tragic and fascinating story of how isolation, duplicity, and religious mania turned impoverished, hard-working people violent, leading to a murder and an execution.

It began as rumours. Whispers at dinner parties. Warnings about bad dates with a Canadian celebrity. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, superstar CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi revealed his interest in "rough sex" in a long Facebook post, and a scandal of unprecedented scale descended on the radio host. What the public did not know was that months before Ghomeshi's emotional post, Canadaland podcaster Jesse Brown and Toronto Star journalist Kevin Donovan were quietly pursuing serious allegations against him.

Winner, Canadian Authors Award for Canadian History, Jeanne Clarke Memorial Local History Award, and Prince Edward Island Book Award for Non-FictionIs it possible to reach back in time and solve an unsolved murder, more than 170 years after it was committed? Just after midnight on April 21, 1842, John McLoughlin, Jr. — the chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Stikine, in the northwest corner of the territory that would later become British Columbia — was shot to death by his own men.

Shortlisted, Arthur Ellis Best Non-Fiction Crime Book AwardIn 1869, in the woods just outside of the bustling port city of Saint John, a group of teenaged berry pickers discovered several badly decomposed bodies. The authorities suspected foul play, but the identities of the victims were as mysterious as that of the perpetrator. From the twists and turns of a coroner's inquest, an unlikely suspect emerged to stand trial for murder: John Munroe, a renowned architect, well-heeled family man, and pillar of the community.

Growing up in rural British Columbia, Deni Béchard believes his charismatic father is infallible. Wild, unpredictable, even dangerous, André is worshipped by his young son, who believes that his father can do no wrong. When the boy discovers his father’s true identity — and the crime sprees and prison sentences attached to it — his imagination is set on fire. Before long, he is imagining himself as a character in one of his father’s stories.