Cruise, David 1950–

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CRUISE, David 1950–

PERSONAL: Born March 28, 1950, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada; son of John Thomas (a doctor) and Claudia C. B. (a homemaker) Cruise; married Alison Griffiths (a writer); children: Claudia, Quinn Toby. Education: University of Alberta, B.A., 1977.

ADDRESSES: Home—Near Milton, Ontario, Canada. Agent—David Colbert, Colbert Agency, Inc., 303 Davenport Rd., Toronto, Ontario M5R 1K5, Canada.

CAREER: Writer, 1980–.

MEMBER: Writers Union of Canada, Periodical Writers Association of Canada (regional director, 1982–83).

AWARDS, HONORS: Silver Medal for investigative journalism, National Magazine Awards competition, 1986, for article "Powder Burns"; National Business Writing Award, Royal Bank and Canada's National Press Club, 1987, for article "The Bank Job"; Canadian Railroad Historical Association Book Award, 1988, for Lords of the Line: The Men Who Built the CPR; Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, 1999.

WRITINGS:

(With Paul Grescoe) Money Rustlers: Self-Made Millionaires of the New West, Penguin Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1985.

(With wife, Alison Griffiths) Fleecing the Lamb: The Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, Douglas and McIntyre (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1987.

(With Alison Griffiths) Lords of the Line: The Men Who Built the CPR, Penguin Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1988.

(With Alison Griffiths) Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey, Viking (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Alison Griffiths) The Great Adventure: How the Mounties Conquered the West, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Alison Griffiths) On South Mountain: The Dark Secrets of the Goler Clan, Viking (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

(With Alison Griffiths) Working the Land: Journeys into the Heart of Canada, Penguin Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000.

(With Alison Griffiths) Vancouver (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

(With Alison Griffiths) The Portfolio Doctor: Your Prescription for Investment Health, Penguin Canada (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals and newspapers, including the Toronto Star.

ADAPTATIONS: The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) developed Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey into a television movie, with Cruise assisting with the script.

SIDELIGHTS: David Cruise once told CA: "My wife, Alison Griffiths, and I work as a team. All work is a full collaboration and has been since 1982. We like research for intensive books, and we like finding out things people didn't or don't want us to know. Nonfiction is as exciting for us as the plotting of any thriller. Our goal is to tell a good story of real life, preferably using information no one else has been able to get."

According to an interview in the Toronto Globe and Mail following publication of their first novel in 2003, the couple "never intended to write together. It just happened." Interviewer Carla Lucchetta continued: "Their first writing project came about because of her first pregnancy, during which they decided that if they pooled their writing resources they could produce their work faster and make more money."

Cruise's first book had only his name on the cover (for contractual reasons, according to a writer for Quill and Quire), but thereafter all their books have been published jointly. Griffiths is the "proud custodian of the painstaking research that goes into all their writing," added the Quill and Quire reviewer, who quoted Griffiths: "We came to understand that David's got certain strengths in writing, I've got certain strengths. But it took a long time for us to put them together comfortably. Even now, it's not just like a glove that you put on."

Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey, Cruise and Griffiths' fourth book, is "concerned with providing an historical expose of the underpinnings of ice-hockey in North America," according to Braham Dabschek in Sporting Traditions. "In doing so," Dabschek continued, the authors examine "the operation of the National Hockey League Players Association, founded in 1967 under the leadership of Alan Eagleson, a young and energetic lawyer." Cruise and Griffiths find that Eagleson's organization has not provided players with the same benefits as have other professional sports unions. Trent Frayne found in Maclean's that "Cruise and Griffiths have uncovered some mighty fascinating nuggets." Frayne concluded: "The authors are on top of … almost everything in their absorbing book."

For their volume The Great Adventure: How the Mounties Conquered the West, Cruise and Griffiths tell the story of how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police played a role in establishing peace in the Canadian West. Library Journal reviewer Terri Summey thought the authors "present a fascinating picture of how the Mounties were formed and their 900-mile trek to tame the Canadian plains." Though not appreciative of some of the reconstructed dialogues used by the authors, an Alberta Report reviewer nonetheless praised the "thorough research, fine writing, and skillful use of sources."

Cruise and Griffiths next wrote Working the Land: Journeys into the Heart of Canada. A Quill and Quire reviewer commended the volume as an "informative and lighthearted book about how an interesting selection of Canadians live and work." Brian Bergman described the book in Maclean's as "a series of vignettes about people who make a living on Canada's edges, whether as trappers in the Yukon, diamond sleuths in the Northwest Territories or potato farmers on Prince Edward Island. What connects these disparate individuals is the sense of freedom they enjoy."

Vancouver, the couple's first novel, saw publication in 2003. "Thick as the city's phone book," as Ken MacQueen reported in Maclean's, this work of historical fiction spans thousands of years, from 14,000 years before the birth of Christ to the present day. Placing the book "in the epic tradition of James Michener," MacQueen assessed that Cruise and Griffiths "gracefully succeed in rooting a young city to its past." A Publishers Weekly reviewer found that in spite of the size of the volume, the story reads well, "as these singular tales—connected sometimes by related characters and sometimes simply by geography or rumor—weave together to recount the saga of a city and its people." Jane Baird had only one complaint in Library Journal: "Given the multigenerational story line, fascinating characters are introduced and developed so that the reader begins to care about them and then are lost in the mists of time, their full stories left to the imagination." Writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail, Bill Richardson concluded that Vancouver reminded readers that "this is a place as rich with violent and turbulent and beautiful history as any on earth."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Alberta Report, January 20, 1992, review of Net Worth: Exploding the Myths of Pro Hockey, p. 42; January 20, 1997, review of The Great Adventure: How the Mounties Conquered the West, p. 40.

BC Report, January 27, 1992, review of Net Worth, p. 42.

Beaver: Exploring Canada's History, April-May, 1990, Jeffrey Anderson, review of Lords of the Line: The Men Who Built the CPR, p. 56.

Booklist, May 15, 1997, Margaret Flanagan, review of The Great Adventure, p. 1558; June 1, 2003, Brad Hooper, review of Vancouver, p. 1739.

Canadian Banker, March-April, 1988, Ronald McInnes, review of Fleecing the Lamb: The Inside Story of the Vancouver Stock Exchange, p. 49.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1998, A. Thomson, "On South Mountain: The Dark Secrets of the Goler Clan by David Cruise and Alison Griffiths."

Canadian Geographic, February-March, 1989, Monique Roy-Sole, review of Lords of the Line, p. 78; March-April, 1997, John Portwood, review of The Great Adventure, p. 82.

Canadian Materials, July, 1988, review of Fleecing the Lamb, p. 122.

CIPS Review, March-April, 1989, review of Lords of the Line, pp. 31, 35.

Financial Post, February 6, 1989, review of Lords of the Line, p. 26.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), October 10, 1987; January 24, 1998, review of The Great Adventure, p. D13; August 30, 2003, Bill Richardson, review of Vancouver, p. D6; September 22, 2003, Carla Lucchetta, "Partners between the Covers," p. R1.

Journal of Canadian Studies, fall, 1997, Steve Hewitt, review of The Great Adventure, p. 162.

Library Journal, September 15, 1997, Terri Summey, review of The Great Adventure, p. 86; July, 2003, review of Vancouver, p. 120.

Maclean's, October 7, 1991, Trent Frayne, review of Net Worth, p. 68; March 24, 1997, Mary Nemeth, review of The Great Adventure, p. 67; January 17, 2000, Brian Bergman, "Postcards from the Edges: A Gallery of Mavericks Who Get Their Hands Dirty for a Living," p. 62; October 13, 2003, Ken MacQueen, "Vancouver's Hefty History."

Publishers Weekly, April 7, 1997, review of The Great Adventure, p. 83; July 21, 2003, review of Vancouver, p. 175.

Quill and Quire, November, 1996, interview and review of The Great Adventure, p. 42; December, 1999, review of Working the Land: Journeys into the Heart of Canada, p. 30.

Saskatchewan History, fall, 1997, review of The Great Adventure, p. 37.

Sporting Traditions, May, 1993, Braham Dabschek, review of Net Worth.

This Week in Business, December 10, 1988, review of Lords of the Line, p. 16.

Western Report, January 20, 1997, review of The Great Adventure, p. 40.