FROM POLICE HEADQUARTERS True Tales from the Big City Crime Beat

Hardback. Nobody covers crime better than the legendary Jacko Thomas, police reporter with the 'Toronto Star' for more than 60yrs. The author ruled the big city crime beat from his perch at police headquarters. And he's seen it all, from the fast-talking con men to the larcenous politicians, including a good many corpses and hangings. Looking back over his colourful career, Thomas brings us face to face with some of Canada's most notorious hit men and thieves, men like the celebrated bank robber Red Ryan. It was Ryan who set the parole programme in Canada back two decades. The author tells how, and leaves egg on a lot of faces in doing so. He also writes about cops, the good ones and the bad - Cherry Nose, the police sergeant who turned out to be a Peeping Tom, and the infamous General Dennis C. Draper, chief of police. It was Draper who saw law and order as a matter of kill or be killed. The street was his battleground. The book also shows the lighter side of crime. You'll read how a gunman's moll named Kitty Kat MacDonald tried to put the move on a young court reporter by the name of John Bassett. You'll laugh at the operatic events surrounding the kidnapping of beer baron John Labatt. Counterpoint to the murder and mayhem is the author's own story, and the story of the razzle-dazzle days of newspaper reporting in the 40s, 50s and 60s when the scoop was still king and a reporter would do almost anything to get one. Illus. + Index. 218pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. F. in F. dw.