It has been a long road to justice for Reena Virk, beaten and murdered at the hands of her teenage peers. The murder of this girl is one of the most notorious and heartbreaking cases in Canadian history. Here, for the first time, acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey reveals the stunning truth about a Canadian tragedy that captured international headlines.
Who were the seemingly ordinary suburban teenagers who found themselves under the bridge in Victoria, BC, on the night of November 14, 1997? Why would a girl who longed to be their friend be beaten and killed? And how did so many teenagers keep terrible secrets from parents, teachers and police for eight days? These are the questions all of us have been asking, and in Under the Bridge the answers are revealed in a stunning narrative. Godfrey spent six years researching the case, conducting exclusive interviews with parents, classmates, police, prosecutors and, perhaps most importantly, several of the youths, including Warren Glowatski, one of the two teenagers convicted of murdering Virk. Godfrey also witnessed firsthand the many trials of Kelly Ellard, also found guilty of killing a girl who just wanted to fit in.

Under the Bridge: The True Story of the Murder of Reena Virk

Godfrey, Rebecca

Health, Fitness & Dieting

HarperCollins, Publishers

The Torn Skirt

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

HarperFlamingo

Under the Bridge

The murder of Reena Virk in 1997 is one of the most notorious and heartbreaking casesin Canadian history. In Under the Bridge, acclaimed author Rebecca Godfrey reveals the stunning truth about a Canadian tragedy that captured international headlines.
Godfrey spent six years researching the case, conducting exclusive interviews withparents, classmates, police, prosecutors and several of the youths involved, including Warren Glowatski, one of the two teenagers convicted of murdering Virk. Godfrey also witnessed firsthand the many sensational trials of the infamous Kelly Ellard, the otherconvicted killer in the case. Blending extensive reportage with masterful narrative,Under the Bridge is a suspenseful, insightful story of violence and redemption.

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

Harper-perennial

Torn Skirt

Literary

“The Torn Skirt is a hot book, a thrilling romance of teen rage and longing -- like S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders, except about girls.” — Mary Gaitskill, author of Two Girls, Fat and Thin
At Mt. Douglas (a.k.a. Mt. Drug) High, all the girls have feathered hair, and the sweet scent of Love's Baby Soft can't hide the musk of raw teenage anger, apathy, and desire. Sara Shaw is a girl full of fever and longing, a girl looking for something risky, something real. Her only possible salvation comes in the willowy form of the mysterious Justine, the outlaw girl in the torn skirt. The search for Justine will lead Sara on a daring odyssey into an underworld of hookers and johns, junkies and thieves, runaway girls and skater boys, and, ultimately, into a violent tragedy.

United States

The Torn Skirt: A Novel

A dazzling, richly imagined novel about Peggy Guggenheim--a story of art, family, love, and becoming oneself--by the award-winning author of Under the Bridge, now a Hulu limited series starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone "Godfrey brilliantly resurrects the avant-garde adventurer Peggy Guggenheim as a feminist icon for our times."--Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation "Magnificent . . . Readers will be won over by Godfrey's incandescent portrait of a singular woman."--Publishers Weekly, starred review Venice, 1958. Peggy Guggenheim, heiress and now legendary art collector, sits in the sun at her white marble palazzo on the Grand Canal. She's in a reflective mood, thinking back on her thrilling, tragic, nearly impossible journey from her sheltered, old-fashioned family in New York to here: iconoclast and independent woman. Rebecca Godfrey's Peggy is a blazingly fresh interpretation of a woman who defies every expectation to become an original. The daughter of two Jewish dynasties, Peggy finds her cloistered life turned upside down at fourteen, when her beloved father perishes on the Titanic. His death prompts Peggy to seek a life of passion and personal freedom and, above all, to believe in the transformative power of art. We follow Peggy as she makes her way through the glamorous but sexist and anti-Semitic art worlds of New York and Europe and meet the numerous men who love her (and her money) while underestimating her intellect, talent, and vision. Along the way, Peggy must balance her loyalty to her family with her need to break free from their narrow, snobbish ways and the unexpected restrictions that come with vast fortune. Rebecca Godfrey's final book--completed by her friend, the acclaimed writer Leslie Jamison, following Godfrey's death in 2022--brings to life the woman who helped make the Guggenheim name synonymous with art and genius.

Peggy: A Novel

Random House]

Peggy

Peggy /anglais

RANDOM HOUSE US

Traces the events surrounding the 1997 murder of fourteen-year-old Reena Virk by eight of her peers, in an account based on six years of research and interviews with the accused that offers insight into the social tensions that provoked the crime and the minds of teenage killers. By the author of The Torn Skirt. 25,000 first printing.

Simon&Schuster

Who were the seemingly ordinary teenagers who beat and killed a girl who longed to be their friend? And how could they hide the murder from their parents and teachers and the police for eight days? Drawing on six years of research -- including interviews with the accused -- acclaimed writer Rebecca Godfrey answers these questions in this stunning account of the notorious "Schoolgirl Murder." Through a skillful blend of hard journalism and riveting narrative, Godfrey takes us into the bedrooms and classrooms of a powerful hip-hop-obsessed clique and the loner-victim who just wanted to belong, then into the police stations and courtrooms where adults -- grieving, devastated -- must reckon with the shocking crime. Highlighting along the way the deeply entrenched social tensions that provoked the murder, Under the Bridge is more than a true-crime book -- it is an unforgettable wake-up call.

Teen & Young Adult

Pocket_Books

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Books by Godfrey, Rebecca