history

Q&A with Robert J. Hoshowsky, author of Unsolved

How did you come up with the idea for this work?
My first book, The Last to Die: Ronald Turpin, Arthur Lucas, and the End of Capital Punishment in Canada was published in 2007, and I knew my next book would also be True Crime, since it is endlessly fascinating. I discussed several ideas with editors at Dundurn, and one of them was a book on historic crimes. The problem was, many of these cases had already been covered in other books, and I felt that unless I could somehow uncover new information, I would be doing these cases a disservice.

Instead of very old cases, I came up with a risky idea: why not write about 12 active, still solvable crimes, going back 40 years to the present day? I began reviewing my own files, missing persons websites, true crime blogs, police cold case sites, newspaper archives, books, magazines, and my own memory, until I came up with an outline for Unsolved: True Canadian Cold Cases.

Writing this book posed many challenges. Not only are all the cases open, family members of victims are alive in most instances. Gaining information from multiple agencies – Toronto Police, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Department of National Defence, missing children’s groups, to name a few – required a lot of paperwork, cooperation, and give-and-take. No Canadian police department wants to jeopardize an open homicide by giving away too much information for the reason that they still hope one day the killer, or killers, will be caught and brought to justice. Some information is always held back if, and when, the case goes to trial.

When it comes to a book like this, the biggest challenge is knowing which cases to include. There are countless missing persons and cold case websites, some operated by police departments, others set up by family members appealing to the public for some piece of information to help solve a murder or disappearance. Talking to the families was often heartbreaking, and knowing just how far to push someone for information can be difficult; I mean, this isn’t TV – these are real people you’re dealing with, who have lost their mothers, daughters, sons, or fathers, and there is a very fine line between asking appropriate questions, and becoming a ghoul. In some instances, families broke up after the murder or disappearance. Surviving siblings no longer talk to one another, or have become dependant on drugs or alcohol to survive. You can never lose sight of the fact you are dealing with individuals whose grief is still as acute and jagged as it was the day their loved one disappeared, or was murdered. My strength as a writer has always been my ability to listen, and this was a great asset when talking to people who have lost family members in ways few of us can even imagine.

Unsolved is very different from anything else out there. This is not a collection about the rich and famous; to me, it didn’t matter if the victims were well-known and wealthy, or unknown and penniless. It was never my intention to create an “encyclopedia” of unsolved Canadian crimes. Many books on the market are nothing more than a bunch of old, previously published articles from newspapers or magazines lumped into a book. In Unsolved, not once of the cases appeared in any other form, until now. I took the approach all of these crimes – no matter how old – could still be updated. The long-retired original investigating officers could be re-interviewed, crime scenes could be revisited, photos and news footage could be re-examined, and family members could be interviewed once again. I spoke to people who hasn’t talked to the media about the crimes in decades. In a number of cases, new information came in literally days after my manuscript was submitted, and Dundurn was very generous in allowing me the opportunity to add passages to certain chapters, especially the sections on Richard Hovey and Eric Jones, and Veronica Kaye, who was murdered in 1980. Shortly before publication, police revealed the existence of a potentially crucial piece of evidence, a small metallic button found underneath Kaye’s skeletal remains. They held onto this information for almost 30 years, and it was revealed in 2009, so I was able to include it in the book. As much as I am keen to paint as complete a picture as possible in my book of these cases, nothing would give me greater pleasure than being able to write the word “solved” over and over again in the margins.

What inspired you to write your first book?
Back in 2000, I was working at Macleans magazine. One day, I saw a book in the magazine’s Canadian history section by John Robert Colombo. I still remember the title: 1001 Questions About Canada. Picking up Colombo’s paperback, the first page I turned to asked, “When was the last execution in Canada?” The brief paragraph mentioned Ronald Turpin, a Canadian criminal, and Arthur Lucas, a Black man from Detroit. Both men were hanged on December 11, 1962. Since it was a book of trivia, there wasn’t much more information than that, which got me thinking, “I wonder if I can pitch a story on the 40th anniversary of the executions for the December 2002 issue of Macleans?” Although it was a weekly news magazine, Macleans ran articles on subjects of historic note at the time, and the story I submitted on Turpin and Lucas was very well-received by the editors.

The article was called The Last Night of the Condemned. I am obsessive-compulsive sometimes, and have a tendency to over-research everything I do. My editor at the time said, “You’re not writing a book!” in regard to amount of research materials and interviews I had lined-up, and I took this as a challenge.

Days after my article was published, there were a lot of strange goings-on. I received a number of calls at work from people who wanted to comment on my story, but remain nameless. One was from an older-sounding gentleman who left a message saying how much blood there was the night of the hangings, and how the Don Jail guards had to wear leather aprons to clean up the mess. It was very disturbing. One called simply said, “If only you knew the truth about what happened that night…” and hung up. That, in many ways, inspired the book.

The double execution of Turpin and Lucas remains one of the most galvanizing events in Canadian history, yet many people have never heard of them. In my research, I found out many people had tried books, documentaries, even plays about them – not one worked out. Their names were absent from many Canadian legal textbooks, even though Canada hanged 710 men and women between 1867 and 1962. In many other countries, including England and Australia, there are numerous books about the last people hanged. In Canada, there wasn’t a single one until The Last to Die, which was published 45 years after the hangings.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received as a writer?
Over the years, I have received a lot of great suggestions, but none better than those from David Kendall, and the example set by one of my late great uncles. David was a neighbour of my aunt’s who wrote a tremendous novel called Lazaro, which was a co-winner of the prestigious Seal Books’ First Novel Award. Lazaro was later made into a feature film called Where the River Runs Black in 1986. I was a bit of a writer groupie years ago – some people want to meet actors, I preferred meeting writers – and David graciously spoke to me for hours about his publishing experiences. Knowing success can be fleeting, David wisely kept his job as a staff writer for The Toronto Sun. He told me about other first-time writers who had won awards, became full of self-importance, and quit their day jobs. They believed their place was assured in Canada’s literary pantheon, right up there with Mordecai Richler, Peter C. Newman, and Farley Mowat. For many of them, it never happened: one book, and poof! they turned into Prairie dust, and disappeared. One book, and they were gone.

David’s point? Keep things in perspective. My credo – which I heard from someone while living in Yugoslavia many years ago – is, “I like to keep my heart on fire, but my brain on ice.” I was chilled the first time I heard this, because it is so simple, yet so powerful. Even when I attended the announcement for the finalists for the Arthur Ellis Awards for my first book, The Last to Die, and my name was announced, my wife Liz jumped up and cheered. I was unfazed. Sometimes, people misinterpret this as me being uninterested, which is absolutely, positively, untrue. Heart on fire, brain on ice. For me, this has led me to a long career, and keep me glued to reality. If you are a writer and think you’ve finally “made it,” think again. You are only as good as your last book, and your goal should be to make every single thing you do brilliant, and never, ever be satisfied with your work. History is full of people who thought they “made it,” and then fell off the edge of the artistic world.

My goal is to keep pushing myself and my work until the day I die. As a kid, I remember my late great uncle, Bogdan Hoshowsky. He was a Ukrainian patriot, outspoken against the Germans during the Second World War, which almost cost him his life – he was a writer and editor who fled Europe with only his typewriter and the clothes on his back. He was an incredible survivor. I remember visiting him in hospital shortly before he died in the mid-Eighties. During his life, he somehow lived through countless heart attacks. He was in Toronto’s Western Hospital, sitting on the edge of his bed, slumped on the window ledge. The sunlight, pouring on through the window, made him a silhouette. I thought he had passed out, until I moved closer, and saw his nose was only an inch away from an article he was editing, blue pencil in his hand. His IV had pulled out, and there was blood and fluid splashed all over the paper… and he kept right on editing. He never complained. He was a remarkable man who published dozens of books for children, manuscripts, and articles, and was a respected, top-notch editor. He was also one of the most humble, understated men I have ever met. I will never lose that image of him from my mind.

Describe the most memorable response you’ve received from a reader.
It was actually not for any of my books, but from a feature article I wrote many years ago for Equinox, perhaps one of the finest magazines ever to come out of Canada. The magazine was brilliant, along the lines of National Geographic. My article, Blood Sport, was extremely controversial, and dealt with the subject of dog fighting in Eastern Europe.

For years, pit bulls were sent from Canada to other countries, bets were placed, and the animals were fought to the death. Simply gruesome. Equinox was swamped with letters, some praising the magazine for exposing this injustice, others condemning the publication for printing such an “awful article.” The two letters from readers I remember most were unpublished. One said my article was repulsive, positively dreadful, but the reader had to finish it to the end. The other was from someone who not only cancelled her subscription, but “threw the magazine into the fireplace,” as if to cleanse her soul after reading my piece. Fortunately, animal rights groups became involved, and the traffic of these animals for the purposes of dog fighting was stopped. If you get powerful reactions like these, you must be doing something right. I am a firm believer in exposing ugliness, because this creates a dialogue. When people become angry they become passionate, and when they are passionate, changes happen. Nothing good in life comes from burying one’s head in the sand, ever. In fact, I use a quote in Unsolved from James Martineau: “We are each of us responsible for the evil we might have prevented.” It is within our power to change things, and do good. This often comes at a price, but my belief is that the price of inaction is far, far worse.

What is your next project?
I have several in mind, most of them True Crime-related. Some are on the softer side, like an examination of corporate crime, while another is something that will probably take years to complete, and involves countless interviews and government clearance. Unfortunately, with the present government we have and the Access to Information Act, I don’t know how long it would take to access documents, or even if I will be able to gain information from these materials. It is frustrating, but it certainly won’t stop me from trying.

Unsolved will be available in June.  Robert J. Hoshowsky is a member of the Crime Writers of Canada.  He lives in Toronto.

© 2010 Defining Canada.