Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales

Here is proof that Canada's ghosts are as old as any European castle. John Charles Dent, the Victorian lawyer-historian who documented Canada's rebellions and political upheavals, turned his formidable pen to far darker material: tales where the past refuses to stay buried. The title story anchors the collection in Toronto's fog-shrouded Gerrard Street, but the weird tales range across the young colony, from crumbling manor houses to isolated farmsteads where something ancient watches from the treeline. Dent writes with the controlled dread of a man who knows that history is merely a polite name for violence, and the dead keep meticulous accounts. These are not gentle specters of Christmas past but restless entities with agendas, vengeful spirits bound to places and grudges, and mysteries that unravel in the worst possible way. For readers who have ever wondered what Canadian gothic looks like, this collection answers with cobblestones stained by invisible hands and parlors where the temperature drops without warning. Dent's weird tales endure because they understand that a new world built on stolen land will be haunted by the old one.