• Age: 15
• Grade: 10

New Edition as part City of Vancouver's Legacy Book Project, with a foreword by historian Daniel Francis

Who Killed Janet Smith? examines one of the most infamous and still unsolved murder cases in Canadian history: the 1924 murder of twenty-two-year-old Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith. Originally published in 1984, and out of print for over a decade, this tale of intrigue, racism, privilege, and corruption in high places is a true-crime recreation that reads like a complex thriller.

We are pleased to be reissuing this title as part of the City of Vancouver's Legacy Book Project. This new edition features a Foreword by historian Daniel Francis.

Praise for Who Killed Janet Smith?:

"... drug traffic, Roaring Twenties hedonism, official corruption, cutthroat competition among newspapers, a public taste for occultism, etc. - and entrust the whole works to a good storyteller, and you have one terrific political history of Vancouver." (Geist Magazine)

"Starkins has written an engaging and well-crafted popular social history of Vancouver in the ostensibly hopeful, materially buoyant ‘flapper era' between the end of the slaughter of the Great War and the onset of the Depression. He reveals the serious fault-lines and profound anxieties of a community emerging in this decade from both its recent frontier past and a costly war into becoming a settled North American city. ... this is a very worthwhile and informative case study, one that is likely to keep the conundrum in the title alive and encourage further research on the topic. ... And who did kill Janet Smith and why? Despite the author's attempt to follow up as many leads as he could find, the answer remains elusive. Despite the presence of a smoking gun, whose hand pressed the trigger is still a mystery, although in an updated afterword Starkins warms to one explanation. As with all mysteries, that should remain for now a mystery." (BC Studies)

"Mr. Starkins excavates each layer of the story like an archaeologist with a trowel and camel-hair brush. He misses nothing. The result is one of those unputdownable reads that stays in your memory." (Howard Engel)

Edward Starkins is a graduate of San Diego State University with degrees in English literature and psychology. His long-time interest in British Columbia history includes contributions to Raincoast Chronicles, The Greater Vancouver Book, Vancouver Magazine, the Vancouver Sun, and West Side Week as well as numerous projects undertaken for the National Film Board of Canada, CBC Radio, and British Columbia History Films. A former editor of the Vancouver Review, Starkins is the author of several radio and film scripts.

Edward Starkins' profile page

Daniel Francis is an historian and the author/editor of more than twenty books, including five for Arsenal Pulp Press: The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture , National Dreams: Myth, Memory and Canadian History, LD: Mayor Louis Taylor and the Rise of Vancouver (winner of the City of Vancouver Book Award), Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918-1919, Canada's First War on Terror and Imagining Ourselves: Classics of Canadian Non-Fiction. His other books include A Road for Canada, Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver's Sex Trade, Copying People: Photographing British Columbia First Nations 1860-1940, The Great Chase: A History of World Whaling, New Beginnings: A Social History of Canada, and the popular Encyclopedia of British Columbia. He is also a regular columnist in Geist magazine, and was shortlisted for Canada's History Pierre Berton Award in 2010. Daniel lives in North Vancouver, BC.

Daniel Francis' profile page

Who Killed Janet Smith?

Originally published in 1984, this title has been reissued with an updated Afterword as part of the City of Vancouver’s 125 Legacy Books Project. Starkins documents his investigation of the infamous case surrounding the unsolved murder of a young Scottish nursemaid that took place in 1924 in the wealthy neighbourhood of Shaughnessy Heights. This non-fiction book reads like a complex and thrilling mystery novel. The author’s thorough and insightful investigation of this crime reveals a successful high-level cover-up by police, politicians, elite families and the courts, with the criminal never having been identified. This fascinating resource tells a great deal about life in Canada in the 1920s. It focuses on the social history of high-society life in Vancouver illustrating the racism, prejudices and corruption that prevailed during this period. Includes Chapter Notes.