Twelve Bricks of Gold.
A blizzard in Winnipeg.
No one is going anywhere … But jail.
In the spring of 1966 Ken Leishman stepped onto the tarmac of the Winnipeg Airport and into the pages of Canadian history. By then, the mastermind behind the country’s largest gold heist had already gained Dillingeresque notoriety as a gentlemanly bank robber. Toronto headlines had spread the news about the brazen and polite ‘Flying Bandit’. This time, he almost got away. Almost.
In Bandit: A Portrait of Ken Leishman, Wayne Tefs imagines what happened behind the headlines, intertwining the full-on action of Leishman’s exploits with the story of a smart but troubled kid growing up in a small and stifling prairie town. As a married man and father of seven, Leishman dreams of greatness, and a good life for his family. Even as he plots the greatest caper in Canadian history, he is ridden with guilt over his failed promises to go straight. In this fictionalized version of a tremendous true story, readers will be hard-pressed to judge the life of this Canadian folk hero who dared to fly far out of bounds.
