True Crime Stories, Book V

Gemma Files is a Toronto-based freelance writer.

Of Max Haines—and his success as a true-crime “journalist”—what
can possibly be said? That he’s the only writer in Canada who can take
an emotionally complex, nerve-racking human tragedy and reduce it to
three pages (or less) of puerile, jokey cynicism with a moral tacked on
at the end? That the ease with which he found his niche in life through
the auspices of the Toronto Sun might give one a pretty clear idea of
his overall worth as a writer? That the events he chooses to
unprofessionally work over for their shock value have already been
better—much better—covered by real experts such as Colin Wilson (The
Misfits), P.D. James (The Maul and the Pear Tree), and Elliott Leyton
(Hunting Humans)? That he basically sucks like a vacuum cleaner, yet
still has the gall to inflict himself on the public year after year,
book after book, inanity after inanity? I think that about covers it.