Death in the Family

National Bestseller
Winner of The Speaker’s Book Award

“I have read many books detailing miscarriages of justice. Chipman’s book is one of the best. It offers a vivid, absorbing and heart-wrenching peek into the experiences of the people it discusses. It is well researched and written, but what makes it especially compelling is that it often reads like a suspense novel—a novel in which one kind of knows the ending but aches and agonizes nonetheless as the story progresses.” —The Globe and Mail

“[Chipman] writes with a fierce immediacy that balances the medical-scientific details of the autopsy world, the legal minutiae of the courts and the brutal conditions behind prison walls. [Death in the Family] is a painful reminder of the far-reaching, devastating ripple effects on friends, families and communities when the systems that are supposed to protect basic democratic rights fail.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“With the clinical precision and the driving passion for the truth that are the hallmarks of every great journalist, John Chipman takes you on a harrowing journey into a parent’s worst nightmare: not only has your child died, but you are wrongly blamed for the death. Shocking, enraging and yet ultimately uplifting, Chipman’s investigation adds yet another haunting chapter to Canada’s long history of wrongful convictions.” —Julian Sher, author of “Until You Are Dead”: Steven Truscott’s Long Ride into History

“Chipman explains how an incompetent pathologist helped convict innocent parents of their children’s deaths and allowed a murderer to go free. Brimming with emotional intelligence, the ending of this book is stunning. Bravo!” —Michael Harris, author of Justice Denied, Unholy Orders and Party of One

“More than a dozen parents [were] victimized by the incompetence of Dr. Charles Smith, who served for more than 20 years as the influential head of pediatric forensic pathology at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. Ontario’s 2008 Goudge Inquiry reviewed 45 cases in which Smith had concluded that a child’s death was criminally suspicious. . . . A painstakingly researched true-crime volume, John Chipman’s Death in the Family successfully puts human faces on those statistics. By focusing on the fate of four families Smith investigated, Chipman delivers a careful recreation of events that is both damning and affecting. . . . Death in the Family is a cautionary reminder of the potential damage done by blind faith in institutional competence.” —Quill & Quire