Brian Vallee (1941–2011)

This volume is chronicles the exploits of the infamous Boyd Gang who robbed banks in Ontario and Quebec in the early 1950's. The reader learns the background on the members and what led them to rob bank and how the life of crime affected their relationships with the women they loved and who loved them in return.

I vaguely remembering their notoriety as child growing up in rural Ontario probably because my father would have been an avid follower of their exploits in the press. While the book is about the gang members and their life of crime, it is also about the newspaper circulation wars amongst Toronto's three newspapers with particular emphasis on the Star and the Telegram competition.

Having recently read a history of the famous Toronto Don Jail and also recently toured the Kingston Penitentiary, it was very interesting reading what it was like to be a prisoner who serve time in both of those institutions. The Boyd Gang's escapes from the Don described by the gang members gave me a different perspective of how they achieved it from the description in the book, The Don.

As two members of the Gang were hung for the murder of a Toronto policeman, the author included how the their deaths led to the eventual abolishment of capital punishment in Canada.… (mere)