Julian Sher – författare

FULLY REVISED AND UPDATEDNational BestsellerWinner of the Canadian Authors Association Birks Family Foundation Award for BiographyFinalist for the Writers’ Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political WritingThe investigation that helped Truscott get a new appeal.In 1959, a popular schoolboy, just 14 years old, was convicted and sentenced to hang for the rape and murder of his 12-year-old classmate. That summer, Canada lost its innocence and the shocking story of Steven Truscott became imprinted on the nation’s memory. First published in 2001, “Until You Are Dead” revealed new witnesses, leads and evidence never presented to the courts. Now this national bestseller is fully revised and updated, and takes readers from that fateful night in 1959 up to the new appeal granted to Truscott in 2006. Julian Sher’s award-winning and insightful chronicle details Steven Truscott’s dramatic final battle – with the help of his family, investigative journalists and lawyers – to clear his name once and for all.From the Paperback edition.

In this definitive, up-to-the-minute account of the Hells Angels in Canada, two veteran journalists investigate why the recent imprisonment of feared biker leader, Maurice “Mom” Boucher, is too little, too late.By the spring of 2002, Boucher was safely in prison but the Hells Angels had grown to 37 chapters with close to 600 members across the country. They had taken over the drug trade and continued their rapid expansion into Ontario with a recent, high-profile enlistment -- or patchover -- of 168 members from other gangs. In Winnipeg, gang warfare turned ugly as the Hells muscled out the competition and firebombed a policeman’s home. In Vancouver, they secured a stranglehold on smuggling in the all-important West Coast port.The Road to Hell is the story of how the Hells have taken over the Canadian crime scene: how politicians dithered while overburdened prosecutors burned out and lost major cases; how police brass squabbled while a handful of dedicated cops worked years to amass their evidence; how a few citizens stood up the bikers and paid for that bravery with their lives. Murder plots, drug deals, money laundering and assassinations are brought to life through never-before-revealed police files, wiretaps and surveillance tapes. In gripping prose, the authors tell all about Boucher’s war on the justice system; how he finally lost in Quebec, thanks in part to Danny Kane, a reluctant biker turned informer; but how across Canada the Hells have succeeded in building a national crime empire.The RCMP and then the police in Montreal would run Danny Kane as one of the most successful -- and most secretive -- agents ever to infiltrate organized crime. Kane would climb all the way to the top: from a lowly hangaround to a trusted confidante of the Quebec Nomads, the elite chapter led by the top Hells Angels lieutenants of Maurice “Mom” Boucher. And through his entire six-year-career as a spy, few people -- even inside the police -- would ever know about his dangerous double life. -- from The Road to HellFrom the Hardcover edition.

The award-winning authors of The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs Are Conquering Canada bring us a definitive, up-to-the-minute account of the Hells Angels and the international biker network.Marsden and Sher explain how the expansion of America’s foremost motorcycle gang has allowed this once ragtag group of rebels, outcasts and felons to become one of the world’s most sophisticated criminal organizations. While the media has continued to toast the Hells Angels California leader, Sonny Barger, as an American legend, the facts tell another story – they are America’s major crime export. With an estimated 2,500 full-patch members in 25 countries, the Hells Angels have inspired a global subculture of biker gangs that are among the most feared and violent underworld players. Angels of Death takes readers to Arizona, inside the biggest American police undercover operation to infiltrate the bikers; to British Columbia where wealthy bikers dominate the organized crime pyramid; to Australia where the “bikies” shoot it out with police; to Curaçao where terrorist organizations funnel drugs to Dutch bikers; and to the streets of Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki where a murderous biker war saw rocket attacks and bombs turn Scandinavia into a war zone. For the first time, police officers who have infiltrated biker gangs tell their secrets – revealing the challenges, fears and horrors they’ve discovered going undercover. Sher and Marsden take the reader behind the latest headlines to tell the story of how the Hells Angels became so powerful, and how the police – with only a few successes – have tried to stop them.Excerpt from Angels of Death:Three murderous evenings, three different continents, three faces of the Angels of death: the killing of innocents, the killing of fellow bikers, and the killing of cops. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of lives ruined, brains fried, bodies withered by the methamphetamines, cocaine and other drugs pushed by the bikers. And yet while the body count kept mounting, Sonny Barger, the Californian patriarch and international leader of the Hells Angels, was being feted by the international media as he promoted his latest bestselling book. Even the usually thoughtful British press fell for the rebel Yankee. The Times called him, “affable, big-hearted, warm.” The Independent labelled him an “American legend.”And in many ways he is. From the Hardcover edition.

The Hell's Angels leader, Sonny Barger, is toasted as an American legend, and the bikers work hard to promote their folk-hero image.But the facts tell another story. The Hell's Angels are America's major crime export. Their membership has spread to 25 countries including the UK, Australia and Holland, where they have inspired a violent subculture of biker gangs who traffick drugs and suppress any attempt to stop them.ANGELS OF DEATH opens at the darkest moment of the Hell's Angels story, with the beheading of a woman at a chapter meeting. It tells the true story of the bikers, their crime empire and the attempt of the police to stop them - with only a few successes. With eyewitness accounts from police officers who have infiltrated the gangs and gang members who have turned informers, and undercover interviews with the bikers themselves, this is a chilling insight into the world's fastest growing crime empire.N.B. Also includes exclusive material from the leaders of the Hells Angels - Sonny Barger and George Christie - who have agreed to be interviewed for the book.

The true story of a decade-long contest like no otherOn Halloween night in 1926, an unconventional millionaire in Toronto with a wicked sense of humour died, leaving behind an unusual clause in his will that haunted Canada for a decade: Charles Vance Millar offered to give the bulk of his estate to the woman who had the most babies in the decade after his death, close to $10 million in today's money. The bequest prompted a mad rush by desperate women to make babies—and a media frenzy. Newspapers covered the contest as a melodrama, with heroines and villains, courtroom showdowns, and unexpected twists and turns. Contests say as much about the public and its prejudices as they do about the contestants. For a competition that was ostensibly about motherhood, it raised troubling questions about race, class, eugenics, birth control, and women’s rights. The Great Stork Derby is the remarkable story of both the ordinary and famous people caught up in a dark, little-known chapter of Canada’s history, with powerful themes that resonate to this day.

They are America's forgotten children, the hundreds of thousands of child prostitutes who walk the Las Vegas Strip, the casinos of Atlantic City, the truck stops on interstates, and the street corners of our cities. Many people wrongly believe sex trafficking involves young women from foreign lands. In reality, the majority of teens caught in the sex trade are American girls--runaways and throwaways who become victims of ruthless pimps. In Somebody's Daughter: The Hidden Story of America's Prostituted Children and the Battle to Save Them, meet the girls who are fighting for their dignity, the cops who are trying to rescue them, and the community activists battling to protect the nation's most forsaken children. Author Julian Sher takes you behind the scenes to expose one of America's most underreported crimes: A girl from New Jersey gets arrested in Las Vegas and, at great risk to her own life, helps the FBI take down a million-dollar pimping empire. An abused teenager in Texas has the courage to take the stand in a grueling trial that sends her pimp away for 75 years. Survivors of the sex trade in New York, Phoenix, and Minneapolis set up shelters and rescue centers that offer young girls a chance to break free from the streets. "e;The sex trade is the new drug trade,"e; says one FBI special agent, and Somebody's Daughter is a call to action, shining a light on America's dirty little secret.