The British-born sailor John Robert Radclive had always wanted to be a vicar, but when he came to Canada with his family in 1890 and landed the position of Canada’s first official executioner, he was proud of his accomplishment. After all, he was experienced. Radclive had hanged pirates on the high seas where he dispatched criminals with merciful alacrity. Why, then, granted all the outer trappings of success, including hobnobbing with Toronto’s elite at the Sunnyside Boating Club, did his life spiral out of control? In Hangman: The True Story of Canada’s First Executioner (Tidewater Press), the Vancouver writer Julie Burtinshaw relates the history of Canada’s seedier side. We learn that Radclive assumed pseudonyms; we learn of his bigotry, and how he was beaten on the streets in French Canada. Gradually, he doubts the guilt of those he has executed and is driven to question the morality of capital punishment itself. This ethical dilemma is assuaged by frequenting the bar of Toronto’s Ocean Hotel on Queen Street West as he becomes increasingly reluctant to return to his family. “This is how they see you,” said his wife one morning as she slammed breakfast on the table. “Not as an angel of mercy, but as a friend of the devil.” Slowly, he discovers the fickle nature of status. Burtinshaw describes Radclive as “strangely likeable” as she skilfully reanimates history. This well-crafted account brings together a unique aspect of Canada’s past and reveals there is more than one way to hang a man.
‍—Maryanna Gabriel