The Big Red Fox: The Incredible Story of Norman "Red" Ryan, Canada's Most Notorious Criminal Paperback – Import, 1 September 1999

You may not know who Peter McSherry is and the name Norman “Red” Ryan may not be familiar to most readers outside of Canada (or outside of southwestern Ontario for that matter). Don’t let that stop you from buying and reading this book. This is an intriguing story of how politics and religion were used and abused to circumvent the justice system for the political and personal gain of several of the country’s elite during the early to mid nineteen thirties. McSherry has done an excellent job of weaving together a myriad of facts into a coherent, captivating and interesting story. Incredulously, after serving only eleven and one half years of a life sentence after a string of bank robberies and murders, Ryan, aided and abetted by not only the prison chaplain (a Catholic priest), but also, the country’s largest newspaper as well as several prominent citizens, including the Prime Minister of Canada, successfully duped all of them into believing that he was “reformed” and deserved another chance at freedom. He was thus granted a “political parole”, only to rob and kill again. In my honest opinion, this story and McSherry’s book are worthy of a review by a Hollywood studio producer for the making of a motion picture.

I found it really good reading . I am from Toronto. My Farther told me that when he did something wrong as a kid his mother would say your going to end up Red Ryan