The Way of Transgressors

Fifteen murderers buried in the yard of the jail where they were hanged. A detective haunted by their crimes. The facts are true. Their stories might be.

Mysteries to be solved, lives to be imagined, crimes to be dissected.

From 1872 to 1930, fifteen murderers were buried in what had been the exercise yard of the old Toronto Don Jail. Their stories are interwoven with that of Detective George Porter, who sketches their faces in pen and ink as compulsively as he investigates their crimes.

Influenced by a childhood event that sparks a fascination with miscreants and the law, George Porter begins his career as an idealistic eighteen-year-old constable. Then he brushes the dirt from the face of a newborn babe, buried alive—how does that not change a man? The criminals he encounters might say he’s a hard case, but just. Except when he isn’t.