Shortlisted for the 2021 Toronto Book Awards.

In 2013, the Toronto Police Service announced that the disappearances of three missing men — Skandaraj Navaratnam, Abdulbasir Faizi, and Majeed Kayhan — from Toronto's gay village were, perhaps, linked. 

On paper, an investigation continued for a year, but remained "open but suspended." 

By 2015, CBC investigative journalist Justin Ling had begun to put in multiple requests to speak to the investigators on the case. Meanwhile, more men would go missing, and police would continue to deny that there might be a serial killer. On 18 January 2018, Bruce McArthur, a landscaper, would be charged with three counts of first-degree murder. 

In February 2019, he was convicted of eight counts of first degree murder.

This extraordinary book tells the complete story of the McArthur murders. 

Based on more than five years of in-depth reporting, this is also a story of police failure, of how the queer community responded, and the story of the eight men who went missing and the lives they left behind. 

In telling that story, Justin Ling uncovers the latent homophobia and racism that kept this case unsolved and unseen. 

This gripping book reveals how police agencies across the country fail to treat missing persons cases seriously, and how policies and laws, written at every level of government, pushed McArthur's victims out of the light and into the shadows.

Named a Top 100 Best Book by The Globe and Mail (Canadian Newspaper).

Winner of the Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book (Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence).

JUSTIN LING is an investigative journalist whose reporting has focused on stories and issues undercovered and misunderstood. His writing has appeared in Vice News, BuzzFeed, Foreign Policy, Motherboard, the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and the Guardian. In 2019 he hosted "The Village," the third season of the CBC podcast Uncover, which examined cold cases from the 1970s that were reopened as a result of the McArthur investigation.

CBC Podcast Link & Details:

 The Village - For eight years, Toronto's Gay Village worried a serial killer was operating in its midst. Men had been disappearing from the neighbourhood, but police insisted there was no evidence of foul play. It wasn't until January, 2018, that police finally arrested Bruce McArthur for the murders of eight men. This case has now set off a chain reaction: Police are now re-opening more than a two dozen cold case murders from the Village, dating back to 1975. To a time when it was safer to stay in the closet than come out. Journalist Justin Ling covered the story, from the disappearances to the arrest, and now he's going back to shed a light on these long-forgotten unsolved murders.

The Village: Season Two

Transgender women know what it means to be marginalized, overpoliced, and underprotected, and the violence that results. A community of sex workers, in particular, is too often criminalized and vulnerable. Host Justin Ling returns to explore the stories of two women — Alloura Wells and Cassandra Do — whose deaths remain unexplained. Following the award-winning first season of THE VILLAGE, which delves into cases of missing and murdered men in Toronto's gay community dating back to the 1970s, season two reveals new details about these womens' lives, the systems that failed them, and a police investigation gone wrong.  We ask the question: When it comes to protecting the queer community, have we learned nothing?

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/437-the-village

Highly Recommended.

This is the Digital Version of the Original 2020 HB Release.