I Got a Name

Description

A propulsive true-crime story that exposes the deep cracks in a system that repeatedly fails to protect women, while tracking the once-cold trail of a murderer still at large.

Krystal Senyk was the kind of friend everybody wants: a reliable confidant, a handywoman of all trades, and an infectious creative with an adventurous spirit. Most importantly, she was tough as nails. So when her friend, Lynn, needed help escaping her abusive husband, Ronald Bax, Krystal leapt into action to protect her.
 
But soon Krystal became the new outlet for Bax’s rage. He terrorized and intimidated her for months on end, and finally issued a chilling warning: the hunt is on. Krystal was scared but she was smart: she reached out to the RCMP for a police escort home, in case the threat was real. To her shock, the officer brushed her off.
 
Bax’s threat had been all too real. He was waiting for Krystal when she walked through her front door that evening. At 29 years old, the woman who seemed invincible—who was a beloved sister, daughter, and friend—was shot and killed in the house she built herself in the Yukon. Ronald Bax disappeared without a trace.
 
Nearly three decades later, Eliza Robertson has re-opened the case. In compelling, vibrant prose, Robertson works tirelessly to piece together Krystal’s story, retracing the dire failings of Canadian law enforcement and Bax’s last steps. She speaks to those closest to Krystal, and also those closest to her killer—determined to bring him, and the system that failed her, to justice.

I Got a Name uses one woman’s tragic story to boldly interrogate themes of violence against women and the pervasive issues that plague our society. In this riveting true-crime story about victimhood, power, and control, Robertson examines the broken system in place, and asks: if it isn’t looking out for the vulnerable, the threatened, the hunted—who among us is it protecting?ELIZA ROBERTSON attended the University of Victoria and the University of East Anglia, where she received the 2011 Man Booker Scholarship. In 2013, she won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and Journey Prize. Her novel Demi-Gods won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her first story collection, Wallflowers, was shortlisted for the East Anglia Book Award and selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice. In 2015, she was named one of five emerging writers for the Writers’ Trust Five x Five program. She lives in Montreal. MYLES DOLPHIN is a communications specialist and a former journalist in all three Canadian territories. Newspapers he has worked for include the Hay River Hub, Nunavut News and Yukon News. He currently lives in Victoria, B.C. with his wife Aimee and Pomeranian Bobbi. I Got a Name is his first book collaboration.CA