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Unlucky to the End: The Story of Janise Marie Gamble

by Richard W. Pound

Dick Pound is probably best known to Canadians as the former vice-president of the International Olympic Committee and later the crusading head of the World Anti-Doping Agency. He also finds the time to serve as chancellor of McGill University and as a partner in a law firm. And now he has managed to write a new book – one that has little to do with any of those presumably time-consuming pursuits.

Unlucky to the End, a true-crime tale with a heavy emphasis on the legal details of the case, is about a 1976 Calgary bank robbery that goes bad, leading to the murder of a police officer and then a hostage-taking. In the first part of the book, Pound quite ably depicts the crime with a keen eye for detail, noting, for example, that the first reporter to reach the hostages by phone was future Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.

Janise Gamble, the wife of one of the robbers, was with them when they carried out all aspects of the crimes. At question, in the trial – and, to a lesser extent, in Pound’s book – is Gamble’s specific role in those crimes and whether or not she knew what her husband and his old jail buddy had in mind. A Calgary jury convicted her of murder, and that verdict sets off the last half of the book, which focuses on the various legal efforts to free Gamble from the Kingston Prison for Women.

Pound was not personally involved in any of these efforts; his connection to the story is through a friend, Colin Irving, who became interested in the case after watching an episode of The Fifth Estate. The chapters detailing how Irving used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to argue for Gamble’s release aren’t nearly as compelling or as entertaining as the depiction of the crime itself. But Pound does his best to break up the long law-heavy stretches by inserting often-touching correspondence between the lawyer and his client.

Throughout Unlucky to the End, Pound neatly balances complex legal proceedings, Gamble’s compelling personal story, and a shocking true crime tale. It is this mix, as well as Pound’s fondness for quirky details, that make the book a worthy read for fans of the genre.

 

Reviewer: Dan Rowe

Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press

DETAILS

Price: $34.95

Page Count: 240 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-0-7735-3300-4

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2007-9

Categories: Politics & Current Affairs