Horseplay: My Time Undercover on the Granville Strip

In his first true crime memoir, undercover operator Norm Boucher recounts eight months spent infiltrating Vancouvers heroin scene, a world of paranoia, ripoffs, and violence. It is 1983 and the War on Drugs is intensifying. From his observers seat in barrooms, Boucher candidly reveals the lives of heroin addicts who spend each day looking for their next hit. Their dangerous subculture, centred around three gritty hotels on the Granville Strip, becomes Bouchers domain as he attempts both to gain acceptance in a world far removed from his own and to keep himself safe. With Horseplay, decorated RCMP officer Norm Boucher takes readers back to the assignment that shaped his outlook on the role of criminal law enforcement and the human side of addiction as it collides with the ruthlessness of the drug business.