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Praise for Canada’s Most Overrated Bank Robber

“Standing at the foot of the scantling . . . was a
thick, freckle-faced man whose prison cap could not hide his flaming head. It
was ‘Red’ Ryan.” —Ernest Hemingway
“A malicious little bastard.” —Ryan’s childhood
friend
“Norman Ryan is a vicious, dangerous and resourceful
thief.” —Toronto police chief S. J. Dickson
“Ryan is well liked in Kingston prison. A fine,
handsome, clean-cut man, he stands out as a giant among the inmates.” —Athol
Gow, Toronto
Star
“We narrowly escaped meeting him. If we had, we fear
we might, like nearly everybody else, have succumbed to his fatal charm.” —J.
V. MCAREE, The Globe and Mail
“I’m glad he is dead.” —Senator H. A. Mullins
Dubbed “the Jesse James of Canada,” Norman “Red”
Ryan was infamous in the 1920s and ’30s until he was gunned down in an
attempted robbery in Sarnia, Ontario. Ernest Hemingway wrote about Ryan’s
escape from Kingston Penitentiary for the Toronto Star, Morley Callaghan based a novel on him,
and stories of Ryan and his daring crimes filled newspapers and airwaves. One
of the first Canadians to be granted parole, he was held up by Prime Minister
R. B. Bennett as a model of rehabilitation and became a regular guest at
Toronto police picnics. All the while, however, Ryan continued a crime spree on
the side.

With skepticism, humour and an often scathing
examination of his own profession, journalist Jim Brown tells the incredible
story of “Red” Ryan, a larger-than-life criminal whose fame and legend were
much encouraged by the media, leading to deadly results.