That Lonely Section of Hell: The Botched Investigation of a Serial Killer Who Almost Got Away - Hardcover

Shenher, Lorimer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1771640936 ISBN 13: 9781771640930

Publisher: Greystone Books, 2015

Synopsis

In this searing personal account, ex-police detective Lori Shenher (who transitioned to male in 2015, and is now known as Lorimer) describes his role in Vancouver's infamous Missing Women Investigation and unflinchingly reveals his years-long struggle with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of working on the case. From his first assignment, in 1998, to investigate an increase in the number of missing women to the harrowing 2002 interrogation of convicted serial killer Robert Pickton, Shenher tells a story of massive police failure—failure of the police to use the information about Pickton available to them, failure to understand the dark world of drug addiction and sex work, and failure to save more women from their killer.

That Lonely Section of Hell passionately pursues the deeper truths behind the causes of this tragedy and the myriad ways the system failed to protect vulnerable people.

About this title

About the Author

LORIMER SHENHER is an acclaimed author, public speaker, and advocate for marginalized people and police reform. His first book, That Lonely Section of Hell, detailed his assignment as the first detective on Vancouver's missing women investigation. It was nominated for several literary prizes and selected as one of the Globe & Mail's 100 Best Books of 2015. He lives in Greater Vancouver, BC.

Review

A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book

The most important book of the year.” Stacey May Fowles, the Globe and Mail

"Shenher's highly readable book provides important insights into a horrifying case and the reasons that it remained unsolved for far too long"
Publishers Weekly

"Shenher's inside account of the Pickton serial murders and the failed Missing Women investigation is both a horrifying and compelling read." Peter Vronsky, author of Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

"This impassioned, deeply personal memoir by a Vancouver cop vividly recalls the racism, sexism, and sheer incompetence that undermined the hunt for Canada’s most prolific serial killer.”
William Deverell, Winner of the Dashiell Hammett Award for Literary Excellence in North American Crime Writing

As a family member of one of Vancouver’s missing women, I am grateful to Detective Shenher for her perseverance, her determination and her kindness. I am also grateful to her for writing this book, for taking us deep into her personal experience of an investigation that went terribly wrong. We need to hear her story so we can change our ways, so those we push to the margins can be less vulnerable to violence from this day forward.
Maggie de Vries, Author of Missing Sarah and Rabbit Ears

In precise and unflinching prose, former detective Lori Shenher outlines a tragedy with a reach far greater, and more sinister, than Robert Pickton’s savage crimes. A moving and inspiring memoir by a cop who was shattered in the line of duty.”
Rachel Rose, author of Song and Spectacle

A stark, gritty, and chilling account of the flawed Pickton murder investigation that highlights the converging issues of racism, sexism, and institutionalized classist contempt that survival sex workers face and exposes the many ways the system failed to protect vulnerable women and to address the root causes of their fate.”
Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, President, Union of BC Indian Chiefs

Edition details

• Publisher: Greystone Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1771640936
• ISBN 13: 9781771640930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320