Tragedy on Jackass Mountain

Former RCMP Sergeant Charlie Scheideman, author of Policing the Fringe: The Curious Life of a Small-Town Mountie, is back with the same wry humour and a new collection of incredible stories drawn from his twenty-seven years of patrolling the small communities of the interior of British Columbia. These new adventures have him re-polishing his boots and relaying untold tales, such as the lone officer who takes on three legendary hard-fighting drunks, earning him the respect of the citizens of Prince George including the louts he single-handedly flattened. An escape from a youth detention centre takes a troubled young man to new heights-in a stolen airplane-that he narrowly survives after crashing into a mountainside. Here too are stories conveying the sad truth and tragic consequences of all-too-common alcohol abuse, such as when an innocent man survives an alcohol-induced multi-vehicle accident on Jackass Mountain-twice-only to be taken by a determined Grim Reaper as he aids another motorist. Scheideman illustrates that "fate looks after some of us" in another story where the extremely drunk driver and passengers of a violent single car accident miraculously survive. The strangest things seem to happen in isolated towns, and Scheideman's latest assortment of intriguing tales recounts more of his experiences from the absurd to tragic. This new collection leaves the reader with renewed admiration and wonder for the men and women who uphold the law in some of BC's more lawless regions.