PINKERTONS AND THE HUNT FOR SIMON GUNANOOT throws new light on the extensive manhunt for an accused murderer in northern British Columbia in the early 1900s. After a double murder in 1906, Gitxsan trapper and storekeeper Simon Gunanoot fled into the wilderness with his family. Despite lack of proof, the police pursued Gunanoot for nearly three years, sending search parties and police operatives into the wilds of northern BC. Frustrated by Gunanoots ability to evade capture, the Attorney General of BC asked Pinkertons National Detective Agency in Seattle to assist in the pursuit. One of the most famous fugitives in BC history, Gunanoots story has taken on the status of legend. This is a fascinating tale of turn-of-the-century crime-solving techniques, rural politics and backwoods survival, based on never-before published, first-hand accounts of the two undercover operatives.
Geoff Mynett was born in England where he qualified as a Barrister. After emigrating to British Columbia in 1973, he became a Canadian citizen, requalified as a lawyer and practiced law until his retirement. His first book, Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician (Ronsdale Press, 2019), is a bestselling biography of the pioneer doctor in Hazelton in Northern BC, 19001936. Geoff and his wife Alice live in Vancouver and have two sons. He is an artist and a passionate believer in the importance of knowing our histories.
"Simon Peter Gunanoot is the iconic Gitxsan outlaw who stands astride a Wild West in British Columbia that was wilder than any American pulp writer imagined. Its a story of colliding cultures, colonial authority, Indigenous resistance and of conflicting concepts of rights, justice and governance that still reverberate through current events. Sifting through secret police reports dispatched during a thirteen-year manhunt, Geoff Mynett sheds a shrewd and discerning light on the social history they inadvertently reveal. As compelling as the best police procedural, his meticulously researched book is an extraordinary and important contribution to BC history." -- Stephen Hume, long-time Vancouver Sun columnist and award-winning author
