Where Shadows Linger is a compelling study of the dynamics of police work and the challenges of apprehending the first serial killer in Canadian history: Clifford Robert Olson. In the summer of 1981, as teenagers in British Columbia's Lower Mainland disappeared, members of the RCMP swung into action. When they started discovering bodies, they began to wonder if this was the work of a single person. By August it was clear that it was.
Rarely is a police officer willing to review the inner workings of an investigation, warts and all, and disclose the long-term impact it had on those involved. In the Olson case, different circumstances and more sensitive responses to cries of alarm from fellow police and civilians would have saved lives. Author Les Holmes and the Olson case's commanding officer, Bruce Northorp, wrote Where Shadows Linger: The Untold Story of the RCMP's Olson Murders Investigation in hopes of aiding future investigations into serial crimes.