Out From Behind Bars: Hank Idsinga & Lorna Poplak

Hank Idsinga, whose grandfather was murdered in the Holocaust, became the country’s leading homicide detective; he shares his insights into tracking down murderers and serial killers over his colourful and decorated thirty-year career. From the age of ten, Hank Idsinga knew he wanted to become a homicide detective, when he learned that his grandfather had been murdered by the Nazis in the Second World War. He prepared to be a police officer his entire youth and soon found himself in ill-fitting suits training for the job.

Fascinating stories of the age-old tug-of-war between prisons struggling to keep inmates inside and escapees desperate to get out. A convict who returned to the prison he had recently escaped from in a vain attempt to foment a mass breakout; a murderer on the run who veered from folk hero to persona non grata after killing a police dog; a fugitive from the United States who was seized in Canada after being featured on America’s Most Wanted; a repeat escapee who shot himself, preferring death to recapture; a serial killer on the prowl in a small community — these are just a few of the felons whose prison break escapades continue to enthral and terrify. Along with probing the origins, structure, and shortcomings of a variety of historic and contemporary correctional institutions, On the Lam brings into sharp focus the attempts — sometimes successful, occasionally deadly — of masterminds, tricksters, scoundrels, and innocents to claw their way to freedom.