Bushman’s Lair, The
On the Trail of the Fugitive of the Shuswap
Description
Evocative of John Vaillant’s The Golden Spruce and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, this fascinating portrait of John Bjornstrom—a far-from-ordinary fugitive—makes for a page-turning read. | The Bushman’s Lair follows Bjornstrom’s circuitous path: a child of Romani refugees raised by nature lovers from Norway; a top-secret US government program that recruited individuals with supposed psychic abilities; and an investigation of the Bre-X mining scandal that led to an alleged hit list.
Reviews
“A fine telling of an irresistible wilderness tale. McKendrick is just as dogged in unearthing the Bushman’s hidden trail and motives as the Bushman was in evading his pursuers.”
- Alex Hutchinson, columnist for <i>The Globe and Mail</i> and <i>Outside Magazine</i>, author of <i>Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Performance</i>
“The Bushman's Lair is a riveting, fast-paced, and suspenseful account of one of BC's most notorious and fascinating fugitives. Just as the Bushman carved out his own cave somewhere in the thick of woods along Shuswap Lake, author Paul McKendrick skillfully carves out the Bushman's engrossing story onto the page. The deeper McKendrick digs, the stranger the truth becomes.”
- Grant Lawrence, CBC personality and author of <i>Adventures in Solitude</i>
“At a time when modern communications and GPS technology have made it unlikely you will find a blank spot on the map, reading Paul McKendrick’s fascinating book is a rare treat. To say stranger-than-fiction is not enough; this story is stranger than most any reality we might imagine. Crack open this book, sit down in a comfortable chair, or somewhere with a view of the water lapping on the shore of a lake, and be prepared to settle in for a disquieting and mysterious read.”
- Stephen Legault, author of the Cole Blackwater and Durrant Wallace mystery series
“In this stranger-than-fiction, intrigue-packed story, Paul McKendrick sets out to unwrap and understand the complicated and colourful tale of this enigmatic figure...”
- Dana Gee, <i>Vancouver Sun</i>
“McKendrick’s writing is lucid and workmanlike, and the narrative pulls you along nicely.”
- Douglas J. Johnston, <i>Winnipeg Free Press</i>
“A must read. You won’t be disappointed.”
- Sage Birchwater, <i>The Ormsby Review</i>
“A footloose misfit? A psychic in training for the US military? A private investigator for one of the principals in the Bre-X gold mining scandal? A fugitive fleeing an alleged death contract? A crusader for justice? A deluded thief and burglar? Who was the real John Bjornstrom? Paul McKendrick wanted answers, and his quest to unravel the mysteries of Bjornstrom’s life artfully wends together an improbable historical backstory, recollections of friends and family, and police records to tell the tale of the enigmatic and curious ‘Bushman of the Shuswap.’”
- Stephen R. Bown, author of <i>The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire</i>
“Paul McKendrick’s The Bushman’s Lair is the thrilling true crime account of John Bjornstrom, a reclusive thief who lived in a beach cave off British Columbia’s Shuswap Lake. It also functions as a speculative biography of the legendary fugitive.”
- Claire Foster, <i>Foreword Reviews</i>
“If Netflix is looking for a thriller with suspicious deaths, greed, gold, government corruption, a secret underground cave, and an eccentric lead character, it would do well to consider first-time author Paul McKendrick’s brisk and bracing tale.”
- Stephen Knight, <i>Quill and Quire</i>