Not being alive in 1984, I knew very little about the Candace Derksen case. I knew Candace was a young girl from Winnipeg who had been murdered. And I only knew that because a family friend owns the business where Candace’s body was found. But after reading Mike McIntyre’s book “Journey for Justice: How ‘Project Angel’ Cracked the Candace Derksen Case”, I got a sense of the profound affect Candace’s abduction had on our community and so many others. The story was tragic, but very moving because I can relate, as we all can, to the idea of wanting to feel safe and believing that something tragic like this won’t happen to us or our families. There was of course no reason for this to happen to the Derksens, but I think we can all learn from the strength and the ability to forgive that the Derksens showed throughout this entire ordeal. I know I found it very inspiring.
In the book, McIntyre and Wilma Derksen emphasize that community support was what helped the Derksens to continue on with their lives, and Wilma believes faith gave her family and friends strength in the years before Candace’s killer was found. Some of my classmates found the book’s supposed preoccupation with religion off-putting, but I thought it painted an accurate picture of the Derksens; “Journey for Justice” focused on the positive aspects of religion without being preachy.
Aside from religion, what struck me about this book and its author is that Mike McIntyre is an excellent story teller and journalist. Yes, he did rely heavily on Wilma Derksen’s book “Have You Seen Candace?” for details about the first 15 years or so after Candace’s murder, but I thought he wove the pieces together very well; none of the transitions seemed jarring or out of place. I also noticed that whatever the source of Mike’s stories were, they were quite vivid and included a lot of detail. Attention to detail is a practice that is taught and reinforced all the time in my journalism class, but “Journey for Justice” gave me my first opportunity to see how adeptly a professional journalist can employ story telling techniques and the use of specific details. In his presentation to Creative Communications students on March 22nd, McIntyre said he made sure that every quote he included came from a source, whether it was first or second hand. He also tried to access as many documents (such as court documents and news articles) as he could to ensure that he wasn’t taking any artistic license or imagining things. He wanted his book to be factual. As a future journalist, I admire all of those aspects of his approach and I think I can take a lot from it.
If I compare “Journey for Justice” to a March 24 Free Press story written by Mike McIntyre, I notice a few similarities, which in my opinion prove successful again. The story, which describes how Winnipeg police arrested 11 members and associates of the Hells Angels, is, like “Journey for Justice” very factual. All of the details included are relevant and the descriptions are vivid. So far, I see this as a winning formula.
Having said all of that, there are some things I would change about the book and there are still a few things I’m curious about. It would have been nice if, in his presentation, Mike had spoken a bit more about trying to maintain a good relationship with police while still giving a true account of the Derksen case or any criminal case. I liked the fact that he verified all quotes, but what about people misremembering what was said or what happened on a particular day?
As a reader, I also saw McIntyre’s story telling techniques as being successful because I just couldn’t put the book down. Granted, I only gave myself three days to read it, but there are few books I’ve read as quickly as I did Journey for Justice. Yes, the typos were a little annoying, but I managed to overlook them; some found the writing a little repetitive, but I found Mike’s summaries helped me to keep all of the facts and events straight in my head. That’s a favourable quality for any book and any type of literary situation.
I would certainly recommend “Journey Ffor Justice” to any nonfiction reader.
