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Brooklyn-raised Terry Gould, born in New York City in 1949, graduated from New York City University at age 21. His bio material states he is the grandson of a Jewish mobster. He married and came to B.C. to homestead on 160 wilderness acres near Telkwa, B.C. There he wrote a short story collection, How The Blind Make Love, published by Dona Sturmanis' short-lived Orca Sound Books. He subsequently moved to Vancouver and began his career as a freelance writer, winning more than 40 awards and honours for his work.
As a non-fiction author Gould first published The Lifestyle: A Look at Erotic Rites of Swingers (Random House, 1999). With a voluptuous jacket detail from 'The Worship of Venus' depicting naked couples, one might assume Terry Gould's look at the erotic rites of swingers would contain some racy bits. In fact, Gould's decade-long investigation into the normalcy of group sex practices in North America is sociological and ostensibly objective--the investigative journalist as scientific voyeur.
The Lifestyle was followed by Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Random House, 2004 $34.95), based on eleven years of research. The subject is a New York-raised gangster known as the 'paper fan' who headed the Gum Wah Gang from Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1990 Gould knocked on the door of Wong's Vancouver mansion and secretly recorded their conversation for a two-part CBC TV exposé about the "destroyer of lives who became my life's work, my life's study, my obsession." Gould's reporting encouraged the RCMP to investigate further. Gould was placed within a witness protection program and Wong was arrested for his alleged role in heroin trafficking. While awaiting trial, Wong took out a million-dollar insurance policy, persuaded a B.C. judge to give him back his passport and fled the country. In 1992 Wong reportedly died in a traffic accident in the Philippines. An urn was interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but Gould tracked Wong's suspected activities in six countries, almost persuading authorities to nab him four times. Each time local corruption became a mitigating factor in the pursuit. Interpol issued a Red Alert arrest warrant for Wong and Gould's quest continues.
In the aftermath of his own investigation of Triad gangster Steven Wong, during which he entered the RCMP's witness protection program, Terry Gould travelled to Colombia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Russia and Iraq for Murder Without Borders (Random House 2009), a celebratory investigation of journalists who knowingly risk their lives to conduct their work for the public good. Most of the 700 journalists known to have been killed in the line of duty around the world since 1992 have sought to unveil local corruption and violence. Rather than focus upon those who murder truth tellers, Gould converses with stubbornly heroic journalists and their families to understand the complex reasons for their conspicuous bravery. Gould cites playwright and Czech politician Vaclav Havel who wrote, "I am not interested in why man commits evil; I want to know why he does good."
BOOKS:
How The Blind Make Love (Orca Sound Books, 1984)
The Lifestyle: A Look at Erotic Rites of Swingers (Random House, 1999)
Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Random House, 2004)
Murder Without Borders (Random House 2009) 978-0-679-31470-7 $34.95
Worth Dying For: Canada's Mission to Train Police in the World's Failing States (Penguin House 2014) $32 978-0-307-36064-9
[Alan Twigg / BCBW 2014] "Crime" "Sex" "Journalism"
As a non-fiction author Gould first published The Lifestyle: A Look at Erotic Rites of Swingers (Random House, 1999). With a voluptuous jacket detail from 'The Worship of Venus' depicting naked couples, one might assume Terry Gould's look at the erotic rites of swingers would contain some racy bits. In fact, Gould's decade-long investigation into the normalcy of group sex practices in North America is sociological and ostensibly objective--the investigative journalist as scientific voyeur.
The Lifestyle was followed by Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Random House, 2004 $34.95), based on eleven years of research. The subject is a New York-raised gangster known as the 'paper fan' who headed the Gum Wah Gang from Vancouver in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1990 Gould knocked on the door of Wong's Vancouver mansion and secretly recorded their conversation for a two-part CBC TV exposé about the "destroyer of lives who became my life's work, my life's study, my obsession." Gould's reporting encouraged the RCMP to investigate further. Gould was placed within a witness protection program and Wong was arrested for his alleged role in heroin trafficking. While awaiting trial, Wong took out a million-dollar insurance policy, persuaded a B.C. judge to give him back his passport and fled the country. In 1992 Wong reportedly died in a traffic accident in the Philippines. An urn was interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but Gould tracked Wong's suspected activities in six countries, almost persuading authorities to nab him four times. Each time local corruption became a mitigating factor in the pursuit. Interpol issued a Red Alert arrest warrant for Wong and Gould's quest continues.
In the aftermath of his own investigation of Triad gangster Steven Wong, during which he entered the RCMP's witness protection program, Terry Gould travelled to Colombia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Russia and Iraq for Murder Without Borders (Random House 2009), a celebratory investigation of journalists who knowingly risk their lives to conduct their work for the public good. Most of the 700 journalists known to have been killed in the line of duty around the world since 1992 have sought to unveil local corruption and violence. Rather than focus upon those who murder truth tellers, Gould converses with stubbornly heroic journalists and their families to understand the complex reasons for their conspicuous bravery. Gould cites playwright and Czech politician Vaclav Havel who wrote, "I am not interested in why man commits evil; I want to know why he does good."
BOOKS:
How The Blind Make Love (Orca Sound Books, 1984)
The Lifestyle: A Look at Erotic Rites of Swingers (Random House, 1999)
Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Random House, 2004)
Murder Without Borders (Random House 2009) 978-0-679-31470-7 $34.95
Worth Dying For: Canada's Mission to Train Police in the World's Failing States (Penguin House 2014) $32 978-0-307-36064-9
[Alan Twigg / BCBW 2014] "Crime" "Sex" "Journalism"
Articles: 2 Articles for this author
Paper Fan: The Hunt for Triad Gangster Steven Wong (Random House, 2004)
Press Release
For 14K Triad official Steven Wong, faking his own death to escape trial was easy. But evading investigative reporter Terry Gould -- impossible. For 11 years terry Gould has tracked the man known as the "paper fan"; through the organized crime circles of six countries. This riveting, horrifying, yet often hilariously funny book is the story of that search, a daredevil journey through the seductions and terrors of Steve's world.
Steven Wong is the "paper fan,"; a thirty-nine-year-old Hong Kong-born mobster. Raised in New York's Chinatown, he matured into crime in Vancouver, where he founded and headed the murderous Gum Wah Gang in the late 1980s and early '90s. In 1992, Wong "died"; in a traffic accident in a remote area of the Philippines before he could be sent to jail for heroin trafficking, conveniently just after he'd taken out a million-dollar life insurance policy. His urn may still be interred in a Vancouver cemetery, but today, Interpol has a "Red Alert"; arrest warrant out for Wong, and his updated file reads like a Hollywood action film -- a post-mortem panorama of organized criminal adventure that circles the Pacific Rim, from Macau to Japan, from Cambodia to the Philippines.
Gould's search takes him into a world in which politicians, police, businessmen and criminals sprint along in one big pack, sometimes nipping each other's heels, sometimes licking each other's faces, and sometimes inviting one another back home for all-night mah-jong parties. Forced to work according to right-side-up rules, honest cops haven't had a chance of arresting Steve in his upside-down world. Four times, Terry Gould has traced Steven Wong through Asia's circles of corruption and pinned him down, but the law has let him slip away. Fifth time lucky?
-- publicity material
"Gangsters are good team players who generally exhibit a locker-room familiarity with other men. Still, it surprised me when Steve answered the door on Monday wearing only his polka-dot boxers, showing off his biceps and his chest tattooed with the winged dragons and sharp-taloned eagle. He was talking on the phone and barely interrupted himself as he turned back into the house, whereupon I realized that the display was likely done on purpose. Neck to waist his back was totally covered by a stylized tableau of a dragon crawling against a background of tigers and flowers - a Triad montage no one outside his syndicate world was supposed to see.";
-- from Paper Fan
Murder Without Borders (Random House $34.95)
Article
In the aftermath of his own investigation of Triad gangster Steven Wong, during which he entered the RCMP's witness protection program, Terry Gould has traveled to Colombia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Russia and Iraq for Murder Without Borders (Random House $34.95), his celebratory investigation of journalists who have knowingly risked their lives to conduct their work for the public good. Gould converses with stubbornly heroic journalists and their families to understand the complex reasons for their conspicuous bravery, citing Czech politician and playwright Vaclav Havel who wrote, "I am not interested in why man commits evil; I want to know why he does good."; Most of the 700 journalists known to have been killed in the line of duty around the world since 1992 have sought to unveil local corruption and violence.
978-0-679-31470-7
[BCBW 2009]
