The Golden Boy of Crime

By Jim Brown

Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, History

The Golden Boy of Crime is a 2019 book by Canadian broadcaster Jim Brown about Norman 'Red' Ryan, a Toronto bank robber and jailbreaker of the 1920s and 1930s. Ryan persuaded prison officials, journalists and politicians, including Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, that he had reformed, and he was paroled in 1935. He became a celebrity speaking against crime while secretly returning to robbery, and he was shot dead during a liquor store holdup in Sarnia, Ontario, in 1936.

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• Margaret Atwood: “First in a series of eccentric #booklists. This one: #truecrime, Canada.”