Journey for Justice

About two weeks ago, I delved into Journey for Justice, a book that chronicles the murder of Candace Derksen and the trial of her killer, Mark Grant.

The book has works very well for the first half, but when Mark Grant is introduced, it takes a turn that I am not a fan of.

Not knowing a lot about Candace Derksen's disappearance, part one was easily the most enjoyable section of the book. Mike McIntyre does a superb job re-telling the events of the day when Candace went missing. This, along with exerts from Wilma Derksen, round the story out very nicely.

The one major aspect about the first part that was intriguing was MBCI and the Redi Mart. It struck a small nerve with me, because I used to live in that area and I have been to that Redi Mart hundreds of times as a kid.

I think that it made the book much more relatable and even though this happened almost thirty years ago, it happened in a "safe" neighbourhood and a place where I would feel comfortable raising kids.

The part of Journey for Justice that I did not like was part two, when we were given about twenty-pages of psychologists describing Mark Grants problems. There first few reports were alright, but they seemed to drag on after the fourth report.

The inclusion of Winnipeg Free Press articles didn't work well for some of my classmates, but I fully enjoyed them. It gave the last section a fresh outlook. However, like the Mark Grant section, McIntyre went overboard with the use of articles.

When comparing Journey for Justice to other pieces of non-fiction, it has a style that I haven't read before - which may be because I read a lot of war books. The use of the 3 parts in Journey for Justice works very effectively, and is much easily to accomplish then trying to create a weird transition in time.

We had the pleasure of meeting Wilma Derksen and Mike McIntyre during our seminar class last Thursday. While McIntyre was very interesting, speaking about the journalism aspect of the book and his career, I would have liked to hear a full hour of Wilma. She spoke with such great poise and it was a pleasure to hear her side of the story in person.

Overall, I'd recommend this story to anyone from Winnipeg/ greater Winnipeg area or someone who is interested in crime novels. It definitely has a unique quality about it and while it does have some flaws, it is a very educational and enjoyable read.