Jack Batten Books in Order

Batten examines Conn Smythe's Toronto Maple Leafs organization and the hockey dynasty built around it. The book looks at the powerful owner, the team culture he shaped, and the players and decisions behind the club's success.

A collection of profiles of major figures in Canadian sport. Batten brings together athletes and sporting personalities whose achievements, setbacks, and public appeal helped define the country's athletic history.

A biography of Toronto retailer Ed Mirvish, following his rise from poverty to discount-store success and later cultural ventures. Batten focuses on Mirvish's flair for promotion, hard bargaining, and outsized presence in the city.

Batten reconnects with the Toronto Maple Leafs heroes of the 1940s and early 1950s, including the players behind several Stanley Cup teams. Their memories offer a personal look at a powerhouse era in Leafs history.

An illustrated account of Canada's westward development during the 1880s. Batten examines a decade of settlement, expansion, and change, placing the growth of the West within the larger story of a young and rapidly changing country.

A practical running guide for newcomers and serious joggers alike. Batten covers how and when to begin, warm-up and recovery, shoes, routes, food, pacing, and fitness measures, making jogging feel less mysterious and more manageable.

A portrait of the Canadian legal profession that looks past stereotypes about lawyers. Drawing on people working in the field, Batten explores their careers, public image, ambitions, and the difficult human problems that reach their offices.

Batten takes readers into Canadian courtrooms through stories of lawyers, judges, and cases. The book emphasizes the practical drama of legal work, making procedure and advocacy easier to understand without losing sight of the people involved.

A biography of J. J. Robinette, the influential Toronto advocate known for major criminal, civil, and constitutional cases. Batten follows his preparation, family life, and long career while placing him in the development of Canadian law.

In his first case, Toronto lawyer Crang investigates why a waste-disposal company is making astonishing profits after a wealthy client's investment goes bad. Corporate fraud soon gives way to murder, forcing Crang to play detective.

Co-written with Marjorie Harris, this practical guide helps Canadians navigate common legal problems. It addresses everyday questions in plain language, offering a useful starting point for readers dealing with rules, rights, and routine legal decisions.

Batten profiles Canadian judges at different levels of the judiciary and lets them describe the pressure of the bench. The book combines personal portraits with courtroom stories, showing how judges approach law, evidence, and responsibility.

A readable look at Canadian trials and the people who animate them. Batten strips away legal jargon to focus on courtroom conflict, difficult decisions, and the human stories behind lawyers, judges, accused people, and verdicts.

Crang helps his friend Dave Goddard, a saxophonist caught near a cocaine-smuggling operation. As he tries to learn who is following Dave, the Toronto lawyer is pulled into a volatile mix of jazz, crime, and old grudges.

A French Riviera holiday with Annie becomes work when Crang agrees to check on his former father-in-law's missing relative. The small favour draws him into an elaborate fraud scheme, tightening danger, and a murder investigation.

When Crang's tenant Alex Corcoran sets out to kill the man he believes infected his late partner with HIV, Crang races to stop him. His search through Toronto's gay community turns more urgent after Alex is murdered.

Batten follows members of the University of Toronto law class of 1975 from their first days as students into varied legal careers. Interviews reveal how classmates became judges, advocates, politicians, corporate lawyers, and solo practitioners.

An illustrated centennial history of Toronto's Rosedale Golf Club. Batten traces the club's first hundred years through its course, competitions, members, and the changing social life around one of the city's long-running sporting institutions.

This history of the Toronto Maple Leafs gathers team memories, major players, and defining eras from inside the organization. It follows the club through the modern game while looking back at the people and moments that built its legend.

A survey of Canada's first century at the Olympic Games, from 1896 through the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. It brings together athletes, memorable performances, and the changing place of international sport in Canadian life.

Batten goes behind the scenes of the Toronto Raptors' inaugural 1995-96 season. From the franchise bid and team-building to Damon Stoudamire and big game nights, it captures the practical chaos of launching an NBA club in Canada.

A history of the Canadian law firm Bennett Jones Verchere, tracing its people, practice, and growth. Batten places the firm's story alongside the changing business and legal worlds in which its lawyers worked.

Batten examines DNA evidence and other forensic tools used to investigate crime. Drawing on cases, crime scenes, laboratories, and courtrooms, he shows how scientific evidence can identify suspects, challenge assumptions, and reshape a trial.

An illustrated look at the family connections that have shaped professional hockey. The book moves through NHL eras and profiles siblings, parents, children, and cousins whose shared rinks, rivalries, and traditions became part of the game.

This biography follows Onondaga runner Tom Longboat from the Six Nations reserve to international fame, including his Boston Marathon victory. It also confronts the poverty, prejudice, poor training, and rumours he faced throughout his career.

Batten explores the history of Toronto's Annex, from its nineteenth-century development to its later life as a diverse, cosmopolitan neighbourhood. Architecture, residents, streets, and local change make this both civic history and place portrait.

Batten tells the turbulent story of criminal lawyer Ross Mackay, whose early murder cases ended with Canada's last executions. Mackay's talent and charm survive repeated personal disasters, making this a study of law, loss, and recovery.

A tribute to fifty Ontario advocates whose courtroom work shaped the province's legal culture between 1950 and 2000. Through portraits and anecdotes, Batten records their cases, working habits, failures, successes, and influence on younger lawyers.

This biography recounts how British nurse Edith Cavell helped Allied soldiers escape occupied Belgium during the First World War. Working from her Brussels nursing institute, she risks everything until German authorities uncover the operation.

This clear history of the First World War follows soldiers, commanders, civilians, and key battles from the Western Front to Gallipoli and Vimy Ridge. It explains how a conflict expected to be brief became a catastrophe on an unprecedented scale.

A young readers' biography of Montreal jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, tracing his early musical training, worldwide career, and determination. Batten also shows the racism Peterson encountered while touring, alongside the discipline behind his dazzling playing.

After two decades away, Toronto criminal lawyer Crang returns to pursue a client who disappears before sentencing in a major marijuana grow-op case. The hunt pulls him back into the city's criminal world and its familiar dangers.

Crang is hired when hip-hop star Flame is blackmailed over stolen early lyrics. Retrieving the pages leads him into a web of fraud, exploitation, and murder, where his usual wisecracks can only protect him for so long.

Toronto bookseller Fletcher Marshall hires Crang after rare literary letters and a manuscript tied to Elizabeth Barrett Browning vanish from his safe. A suspected forgery, a murder, and too many interested parties turn the case into a dangerous literary caper.

This biography follows Toronto defence lawyer Ross Mackay through major murder trials, courtroom wins, alcoholism, disbarment, and hard-won returns. It centers on a lawyer committed to defending unpopular clients, even as his own life comes apart.