The High Road: Confessions of a homicide cop
Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin
If you think the confessions of a homicide cop are not your beat, this book should change your mind. It packs a realistic punch with an array of gut-wrenching case histories that a dedicated Canadian homicide team solves despite the complexities. On the surface, The High Road is a factual, straightforward account of the career of top Canadian cop Hank Idsinga, who, prior to his recent retirement, headed Toronto’s Homicide Unit. But it is so much more than that; it is also a searingly honest evaluation of the Canadian policing and justice systems, where competitive and racist cops can obstruct the progress of others through the ranks, and where exemplary police mentors generously share their knowledge and wisdom. Above all, this book presents a fascinating series of homicides requiring advanced technical and problem-solving skills so necessary in a digital age. The author delves into the brutal and rapacious criminal world of street gangs and killers, exposing the corruption and violence that instil fear and potentially degrade neighbourhoods. It is a world that offends with its biases and pain and, occasionally, inspires with its high ideals and altruistic service. All this Idsinga delivers in spades.
However, Idsinga never shies away from acknowledging the system’s fault lines and weaknesses, its bureaucratic inequities, competitive structures and personalities, racial profiling and the human shortcomings that can derail investigations, promising careers and professional relationships. From the very first chapter, we begin to understand what drives him and why he is so dedicated to catching ‘the bad guys’; and how a police operation he witnessed as a ten-year-old impacted his thinking and shaped his future.
Idsinga’s identity is deeply embedded in his family story, a Holocaust narrative that explains, in part, his obsession with justice and his compulsion to limit or eradicate suffering and racism in the world around him. As a youngster, he carried within himself transgenerational wounds and trauma that he traces to the Nazi persecution and torture of his Jewish grandfather, Arthur Jacobs, whom the Gestapo arrested in 1936. Interned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, in 1942 he was murdered in Schloss Hartheim’s gas chamber, a Nazi ‘euthanasia facility’ in Austria. Hank describes the desperation and deprivation experienced by Arthur’s Catholic German wife, Maria. Their three young children, Klaus, Luise and Leni (Hank’s mother) were categorised as mixed race (half-Jewish) children, prompting Maria in 1939 to send all three to Catholic orphanages in the Netherlands, where the girls were sent to Amersfoort and Klaus to Voorhout. This turbulent history of murder, displacement, separation and alienation from all they knew would filter through to future generations of their family. ‘My journey began decades before I was born,’ Hank writes.
Hank was psychologically motivated and, standing six feet six in height, physically well-suited to be a cop, a homicide specialist and a leader. ‘My career in policing was motivated in large part by my family history, which was scarred by racism and antisemitism,’ Hank states. What characterised him in his evolving career roles were his compassion, empathy and burning sense of justice for victims of crime, as well as his sensitivity to the pressures and ongoing challenges facing police colleagues, not least the constant sleep deprivation, night shifts and inherent dangers of the job, leading in many cases to PTSD. There were periods when murders regularly claimed lives and, at times, officers were ‘swarmed’ by gang members.
Hank documents in detail numerous exciting investigations, but concedes that there were also long hours at crime scenes or in hospitals, ongoing abuse, bad weather and bad relationships. He notes, however, that many of his work relationships became true friendships, ‘The dividends paid through positive relationships and information sharing far outweighed the disadvantages’. He learned from observing peers and superiors. He admired, for example, an intelligent and hardworking police officer, John, who always revisited a victim one or two days later to see how they were doing, a practice Hank followed in his career. Importantly, he believed in the autonomy of officers and emphasised their right to say no if detailed to do something unlawful. ‘Far too many officers have found themselves in trouble because they were afraid to speak up,’ he states.
Hank is also critical of the internal promotional process, which to this day generally consists of an application, a unit commander’s assessment score, an exam and an interview, a process susceptible to cheating and corrupt practices by senior officers overseeing the exam, interviews and assessments. He cautions against believing that leadership in policing begins with promotion. ‘If you get promoted to sergeant, it’s an opportunity to establish yourself as a leader, but you still have to earn it,’ he says. Additionally, everything a police officer does should be subject to scrutiny, with society relying on the courts to ensure every action is lawful.
When Hank joined the Homicide Unit, his first murder case involved five months of wiretapping, a last-resort investigative effort and a huge undertaking by civilian monitors working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Investigators then review the calls, decide which are relevant and the investigative actions to be taken. They are also obligated to assess jailhouse informants, which is tricky, as informants usually look for some reduction in their own charges by peddling a confession they’ve leveraged within the jail. The homicide squad is also responsible for murder-suicides, which Hank states should be treated from the outset as a double murder until proven otherwise.
The book deals with a broad array of homicide cases, none more disturbing than the death of a seven-year-old child, an investigation that shocked Hank profoundly. ‘Walking into that autopsy suite and seeing that little girl lying on a morgue table …was a hugely traumatic moment for all of us,’ he writes. His discussion of this case reveals the multiple tasks of the Homicide Unit, interviewing neighbours, family members, friends, teachers and Children’s Aid workers, as well as the comprehensive forensic examination of the apartment where the child died. It was Hank’s first child murder investigation, but it wouldn’t be his last, and these cases took a toll. ‘I found it very helpful to talk about the case and Katelyn [the child victim] in the hope that police officers would learn and gain something from it,’ he writes. ‘Students regularly ask me how I cope mentally with cases like this. It takes time.’
Hank was either the major care manager or the primary homicide investigator for close to 80 murder cases and writes about those that taught him ‘great lessons’ or those he’ll remember for the rest of his life. Interestingly, he advises that including young, eager and energetic constables assigned to homicide in some of these investigations pays huge dividends. ‘It wasn’t unusual in briefings for the spark of an idea to come from the most inexperienced minds,’ he writes. ‘Any team that doesn’t promote this approach is missing out on valuable opinions and opportunities.’
Notable among the cases that Hank presents and analyses in detail is the case that shocked the Canadian nation and made international headlines, that of serial killer and landscape gardener Bruce McArthur, the worst serial killer in Toronto’s history, who murdered eight men. Anger propelled Hank through this investigation. ‘I have virtually no temper whatsoever, but I was fuming,’ he states. ‘How dare this man terrorize an entire community for years, all while hiding in plain sight? How dare he kill these men, dismember them, and put them in planters, as if they were nothing?’
This book holds the general reader’s attention with its honest appraisal of contemporary policing and the inner workings of Toronto’s Homicide Unit, which is recognised as the best in Canada. Cases are described factually and never dramatized for the sake of effect. The facts speak for themselves. Students of criminal law and procedure, forensic evidence, police powers and law enforcement, and law subjects studied in Australian universities should find this first-person account of criminal investigations and homicide of great interest. Those working in the police force might also find this a fascinating account, by one of their own, of multiple areas of police experience and expertise.
Throughout Hank Idsinga’s decades in the police force, he proved himself a brilliant investigator, a man with the courage to call out racism in the Canadian police force, someone who was even-handed in giving praise or blame, a police officer exemplifying the best policing practices in his country. This book highlights the merits of the Homicide Unit that he shaped and transformed in many ways during his tenure of office. Well worth the read.
The High Road: Confessions of a Homicide Cop
By Hank Idsinga
Simon & Schuster, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne
Published April 2026
