James Dubro

James Dubro is an award-winning crime writer of many books, articles and investigative television shows.

Dubro earned an undergraduate degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Boston University, received his master's degree from Columbia University, and did graduate work at Harvard University. He moved to Toronto from his native Boston to teach English literature at Victoria College at the University of Toronto.

In 1974 he researched a news-breaking hour-long documentary on espionage in Canada for CBC TV called "The Fifth Estate: The Espionage Establishment." He then became one of the producers of the famed Connections television series on organized crime broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1977 and 1979. It won the Anik and ACTRA awards for best documentary and the Michener Award.

Dubro then became a researcher and associate producer for the CBC's The Fifth Estate. After leaving the CBC to work freelancer, Dubro wrote five books on organized crime in Canada and its international connections. He has also researched, written, or produced documentaries on organized crime, Cuba, the KGB and the CIA that have appeared on CBC, PBS, A&E, CITY-TV (Toronto), and CTV . He co-authored the definition of "organized crime" for all editions of the Canadian Encyclopedia. He was president of the Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) for two years and has been awarded its 2002 "Derrick Murdoch" award for his non-fiction crime writing and his many years of CWC work. In more recent years, Dubro, a longtime activist on policing issues in the LGBT community, has written on crime and policing matters for Xtra!

Published works

• Mob Rule: Inside the Canadian Mafia (Macmillan, 1985)
• King of the Mob: Rocco Perri and the Women Who Ran His Rackets, co-authored with Robin Rowland (Penguin, 1987)
• Mob Mistress (Macmillan, 1988)
• Undercover: The Cases of the RCMP's Most Secret Operative, co-authored Robin Rowland (Octopus, 1991)
• Dragons of Crime: Inside Asian Mobs in Canada (Octopus and M & S 1992, 1993), national Film Board and A & E, CBC documentary
• "Introduction" to Morley Callaghan's Strange Fugitive (Exile Editions, Toronto 2004), originally published 1928

Radio Play

Morningside, King of the Bootleggers, starring Bruno Gerussi and Barbara Budd, the story of Rocco Perri, co-authored with Robin Rowland

References

• Behind the Headlines by Cecil Rosner (Oxford Press 2008)
• The Crime Writers of Canada website.
• Making Connections by Wade Rowland (Gage 1979)
• Xtra/Pink Triangle Press web page -- "stories by James Dubro"