From 1858 until 1950, the BC Provincial Police were responsible for maintaining law and order in British Columbia. Numbering only 100 men in 1900, they patrolled this vast area by horseback, boat, snowshoes and dog team until the arrival of the train, automobile and airplane. In these classic cases from the files of the BC Provincial Police, former deputy commissioner Cecil Clark brings to life the lawmen who upheld the peace and the criminals who disrupted it. A Texas gambler thinks he has committed the perfect murder, but his plans are foiled by Barkerville’s barber. A Quesnel family disappears in mysterious circumstances—their fate remains unknown to this day. Two men are brutally murdered at Osborne Bay in a case of mistaken identity, but did they ever receive justice? These dramatic stories provide a vivid window into BC’s frontier society and the challenges faced by the members of North America’s first territorial constabulary.

Born on November 11, 1899, in North Berwick, Scotland, Cecil George "Nobby" Clark was 17 when he enlisted in the B.C. Provincial Police, first working as a junior clerk and rising to the position of assistant commissioner in 1959. His four books about the Force´s cases cover the 92-year history of the first territorial constabulary in North America, founded in 1858 at the time of the Fraser River gold rush. This series commenced with the publication of Tales of the British Columbia Provincial Police, published by Gray Campbell, himself a former police officer. Clark also gathered a pictorial history of Victoria covering 115 years, The Best of Victoria Yesterday and Today. He was a helpful influence on the work of Lynne Stonier-Newman, who has written her own histories of police work in British Columbia.

Cecil Clark's profile page