by donalee Moulton

Last month we tried our hand at a fun quiz about watches—central to the mystery that unfolds in Bind.  Well, the questions keep coming; only this time the focus is on thievery.

Try your hand at these. Scroll down for the answers.

QUESTIONS:

#1: What is the largest theft in Canadian history?

A. The “Canadian Maple Syrup Heist” in 2011-2012
B. The “Pearson Airport Gold Heist” in 2023
C. The “Costco Cigarette Heist”in 2004

#2: Which Canadian city was once known as the bank robbery capital of North America?

A. Toronto (or T-Dot as the cool kids say)
B. Vancouver (or Raincity as the locals call it)
C. Montreal (the City of Saints, unofficially of course)

#3: Which Canadian criminal was known as the Flying Bandit?

A. Ken Leishman, convicted gold robber
B. Gilbert Galvan Jr., convicted bank robber
C. Johnson Aziga, convicted murderer

#4: Who is Canada’s most infamous female bank robber?

A. Machine Gun Molly (died after being shot by police)
B. The Church Lady Bandit (convicted of robbing 11 banks)
C. Ma Barker (matriarch of a bank robbing family)

ANSWERS:

Question #1: The answer is A. Over several months in 2011 & 2012, thieves stole nearly 3,000 tonnes of maple syrup from a storage facility in Quebec (value of about $30 million in 2024). The theft was featured in the Netflix documentary series Dirty Money  in 2018 (Season 1, Episode 5).

Question #2: The answer is C. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Montreal was the bank robbery capital of North America, with more bank robberies per year than even New York and Los Angeles. This was largely due to the light sentences handed down by Quebec courts—5 years in prison for convicted thieves compared to the 20 years in prison normally handed down by American courts.

Question #3: The answer is A & B. Canada had two Flying Bandits! The first was Kenny Leishman who masterminded the biggest gold heist in Canadian history—until the Pearson Airport Heist in 2023. He earned the nickname The Flying Bandit after he escaped from prison, stole a plane, and flew to the US where he was arrested. The second was Gilbert Galvan Jr., an American who escaped from a Michigan jail and fled to Canada where he robbed 59 banks and jewelry stores.  He was dubbed The Flying Bandit for his habit of flying from city to city to rob banks. He robbed banks in every Canadian province except PEI and Newfoundland. 

Johnson Aziga is the first person to be charged and convicted of first-degree murder in Canada for spreading HIV, after two women he had infected without their knowledge died.

Question #4: The answer is A. Monica Proietti, better known as Machine Gun Molly, was a Canadian bank robber from Montreal. She was suspected of masterminding at least 20 bank robberies during her short life. On September 19, 1967, she robbed a Montreal credit union with two accomplices. That set off a high-speed chase that ended with her being shot and killed by police. It’s been said that “If Al Capone had had a daughter, he would have wanted her to be Monique Proietti.”

I hope you were challenged by the questions and intrigued by the answers. Let me know how you did.

By Margaret Lucke

One reason that English is so delightful, and so befuddling to people who are trying to learn it as a second or third language, is that the same word or phrase can mean so many different things. For example, take stock of some of the ways to take stock.

To a cowboy, stock is the herd of animals being raised on a ranch or farm. In the 1870s and 1880s taking stock meant a long dusty journey driving cattle from Texas to Kansas.

A shopkeeper’s stock is the goods on hand that are being offered for sale. Taking stock involves counting all of the items in the inventory.

A photographer who takes stock is shooting photos that others can use in ads, as book covers, as illustrations, and so on. Agencies handle the business end of licensing the rights. You can browse through millions stock photos on the Internet.

A cook thinks of stock as a rich broth made from bones and trimmings of meat and vegetables. Stock serves as the basis for soups, risottos, paellas, and many other delicious recipes. Take stock, put it on the stove, and get set to prepare a wonderful meal.

For an investor or a businessperson, stock is an ownership share, or many shares, of a publicly traded company. A corporate executive may take stock as part of a compensation package, hoping the value of the shares will go up.

When my husband and I owned a printing business, stock had to do with the paper required for a job. We would, for instance, take card stock for posters or 20-pound stock (about the lightest weight that would go smoothly through our press) for flyers.

To a gardener or a florist, stock is a flower of the species Matthiola incana, with a spicy scent and showy white, pink, or purple blooms. Take stock, and you have a beautiful addition to a garden or a bouquet.

When a genealogist or archeologist talks about stock, they are referring to an individual’s or group’s ancestral background, as in “they came from European stock” or “their forebears were of Asian stock.”

A firearms enthusiast knows that the stock is the part of a long gun, like rifle or shotgun, that is placed against the shoulder to hold the firearm steady when it is fired.

To a writer or reader, stock is something standard or conventional or unimaginative, such as a stock character or a stock phrase.

Stock can also refer to the opinion or regard with which something is assessed, as in “I take little stock in what that person claims” or “the candidate’s stock with voters is high.”

And around this time, as the year winds down, a lot of us are taking stock – by which we mean we’re reflecting on the events of the past twelve months, assessing our goals and achievements, and making our plans for 2026. We’re looking at where we are, how got here, and where we want to go.

I hope that your taking-stock process goes well, whatever that phrase means to you, and I wish abundant joy in this holiday season.

* * * * *

If your plans for 2026 include making progress on your novel, you might be interested in the class I’ll be teaching this winter for University of California, Berkeley Extension: “Writing Genre Fiction: Science Fiction, Mystery, Romance and More.” 10 Thursday evenings, January 22–April 2, with February 26 off so we can attend the Left Coast Crime convention in San Francisco. Info about the class is here.

So, it’s not surprising I finally got around to having my newly downsized law librarian and self-proclaimed private investigator, Pat Pirard, get hired to work with an attorney on jury selection in what seems like an open-and -hut murder trial.

I always wanted to be seated on a jury, but during the selection process the question would always come up, “Are there any police officers in your family?” I was an only child, but I had cousins, two identical twins who were raised like my brothers who were both cops. Yes, I loved both of them, probably worshipped them because they were three years older than me, but I would try to explain that one became a police officer because he was a bit of a bully and probably enjoyed the power he had over others when he was in uniform and the other twin was knocked unconscious with his own billie club while trying to reason with a suspect during an arrest. He joined the police force to serve and protect (he was also deathly afraid of spiders.)

I figured knowing such different cops well made me especially qualified to be neutral and listen to the facts in a trial rather than being swayed by police testimony. Unfortunately, I never persuaded the judge and was always dismissed before I was sworn in to a jury.

My degree in behavioral science may have contributed to my fascination with juries, too. I was one of those people who had a professor who hired acting students to rush into the classroom unannounced and do outlandish things before rushing out again and then asking us to write down answers to questions about what we had just seen. In a classroom of thirty students, none of us agreed on everything we had witnessed. That experience taught me that firsthand witness accounts aren’t necessarily a recitation of facts, but can sometimes be influenced by a witnesses’ perception of what was happening.I relished the idea of studying the body language of witnesses during testimony and knew some of the tricks about watching where their eyes went as they recalled what happened to judge whether they were recalling an incident or making it up as they testified. I devoured articles about how to spot a lie. I wanted to use what I learned, but never had a chance.

One time when I was called for jury duty, but not called to the jury box, I returned to the courtroom and took notes about how the attorneys used their preemptory challenges to remove jurors. I was so fascinated by their logic—which struck me as being the reverse of what I thought it should have been—that I came back for the entire trial to see if it made any more sense to me.

What’s the cliché, “if you can’t do, teach?” I think writing about an experience you haven’t had works as well so I always wanted to incorporate jury selection in a mystery I wrote. In “What Lucy Heard,” I finally got my chance.

My protagonist, Pat Pirard, is modeled on a real person also named Pat. Both Pats were the Santa Cruz Law Librarian for many years, both carry a 357 Magnum gun and know how to use it, and both are unlicensed private investigators.  I rely on the real Pat for information about some of the tools she uses in her investigations, not to mention her myriad ideas based on cases she’s worked, but it took me until this year to finally ask her if she’d ever done any jury selection. The response I got was not the one I expected. She said, “Oh, yes, and never again.”

“Why, what happened?” I asked.

“It was a murder case. I wanted to meet the accused and decide if I believed his story before I agreed to work on jury selection. When I met him, I believed him, and went to work. I used every idea I had about jury selection—some of my ideas were unconventional—but they worked and he was acquitted. The only problem was that after the trial, I began to have doubts about his innocence. I didn’t sleep for four months worrying about what I had done until the real killer was caught and confessed. Never again. I can’t take that kind of stress.”

Oh, what fun! I was flooded with ideas about what to look for in a potential juror and Pat shared her secrets for her work about who to fight to seat and who to challenge. The real Pat’s experience took place before the incursion of social media into everyone’s life so I added some research using it. Of course I changed details about the murder, the accused, and the motive for murder, but starting “What Lucy Heard“ with jury selection and the impact Pat’s work had on the trial outcome was a joy for me to write.