I have been reading a lot of local true crime lately, between my work for this column, and in developing the Nanaimo Museum’s current feature exhibit, Nanaimo Mysteries. This exhibit focused on murders, a safe-cracker, Brother XII’s cult, and the supernatural. Many laws were broken in Nanaimo’s history to make the exhibit happen!
This issue’s law theme is a great opportunity to present a strong selection of books on British Columbia’s history. Diverse voices, land use, murder, and the far-reaching impacts of federal government legislation seem like scattered stories at first glance. But the impacts of the law in British Columbia—how it was made, broken, enforced, who it enfranchised, and what that meant—is an undercurrent that links these books.
We have switched up the review format for this issue and…
