When art imitates life

One of Canada's leading securities lawyers, Barbara Hendrickson likes to unwind after a busy week with a good book.

She heads her own Bay Street firm, BAX Securities Law, so the hours are long, the clients are demanding, and the stakes are high.

A John Grisham legal thriller used to be her way of unwinding, but Hendrickson now prefers to write her own.

You're reading this because she has penned a new series of novels about a kick-ass lawyer-turned-security investigator named Alex Greene. Accompanied by martial artists Max Pound and Joshua “Wolfman” Workman, she investigates major and sometimes deadly fraud cases for an international insurance firm in Death Fund, Stashed Cash, and Easy Money. A fourth book in the series, Crypto Crooks, is in the works.

With her take-no-prisoners attitude and expertise in martial arts, it's no surprise that Greene is Hendrickson's alter ego. She is a woman as skilled in fighting criminals with her fists as she is in negotiating contracts with governments.

Hendrickson admittedly didn't have to look very far for her storylines. One of the truisms of securities law is that money can make people do things they might never normally consider. The more money on the table, the more ruthless clients become.

So, while the storylines are largely invented and resemblances to real life are purely coincidental, it's safe to say Hendrickson won't have a hard time finding more thrilling tales of fraud in high places.

She writes under the pen name Stina Hemming, and in her debut novel Death Fund, the Paris-based insurance investigator is called in when dozens of investors linked to the KGB in a settlement fund, a last-person-standing investment, meet untimely deaths.

Self-published, Death Fund received a Kirkus recommendation, with the reviewer calling it “a solid series starter that never flags in its sprint to a sinister climax.”

It’s currently available on Amazon and the Stina Hemming website, www.stinahemming.com.

In Stashed Cash, a large insurance policy payout lands in the hands of an Ivy League student who turns up dead, leading to a big insurance payout for her boyfriend and agent. In Easy Money, a motorcycle gang generates industrial-sized profits when they take their cannabis public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Completed and ready to go, Hendrickson hopes Stashed Cash and Easy Money will go on sale in 2025.

“Greed can make people go to extremes. In money markets, high risk equates to high returns. It's high stakes,” she says.

“One of the things I love about being a securities lawyer is that it gives me lots of material for stories you can hardly imagine and insights into the types of people I occasionally deal with.”

Hendrickson says she wanted to create a protagonist readers could identify with.

“Nice is not one of the characteristics of a successful securities lawyer. I go for the gritty. It’s in my nature. It’s my Viking blood.”

And who doesn't want a healthy degree of feistiness in their legal sleuths? It’s the attitude Hendrickson relied on to break the bar's glass ceiling 30 years ago and what fuels her character's drive to succeed.

She attended law school at the University of Calgary before moving to Toronto and completing a Master’s degree in tax law at Osgoode. She worked a term as a Crown attorney before opening her own law firm in 2012. She chaired the CBA's Business Law Section from 2014-2016 and in 2024, was ranked among the “Best Lawyers in Canada.”

“Law was very white, very male when I began in the 1990s,” Hendrickson says.

“I was often the only female in the room. You have to be confident to succeed.”

Years later, armed with a vivid imagination, determination and three decades of securities experience, during which she’s seen first-hand the unimaginable lengths greedy clients will go to for cash, the mother of three began sketching Greene.

But it wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic that Hendrickson found the time to finally write Death Fund.

“I was initially nervous about writing fiction,” she admits.

“Lawyers need strong writing skills, but being a good legal writer is completely different from crafting fiction that captures the attention and imagination of readers. To write fiction, lawyers have to overcome the inhibitions and constraints on creativity drilled into our brains by the legal profession and just let their imaginations run wild. That’s not easy.”

But then, one day, she read something Canadian author Margaret Atwood had said about writing fiction that encouraged her to pursue it.

“She said—and I'm paraphrasing—that there are career authors and others who just have a story to tell,” Hendrickson recalls.

“It never occurred to me before that just having a story to tell was enough to write a book.”

Now that she's about to hit the market with four Alex Greene novels, Hendrickson's immediate goal is to find a publisher, preferably in Paris, where she is negotiating with agents. Eventually, she hopes to retire from her seven-day-a-week schedule and start writing books in foreign locations and babysitting her grandchildren.

“If you think securities law is competitive, try publishing a book,” she laughs.

“Hundreds of thousands of books get published every year in Canada. That's why I wouldn't recommend self-publishing. With so many books hitting the market every week, you need a publisher to help readers find you.”

Books and information about the Alex Greene series are available at www.stinahemming.com.