Book Publishers Association of Alberta

A humble doctor performs medical miracles for a dollar apiece in a tiny farm outside Ottawa. A teenager from Cincinnati passes himself off to Toronto newspapers as a “wilderness boy” making his first trip into civilization on a mission of revenge. A clause in an eccentric millionaire’s will triggers a national “baby derby,” and a war hero becomes a religious cult leader and turns his British Columbia enclave into a hotbed of sadomasochistic orgies.

The 1920s were a time of frivolous fads, shocking crimes, and political and social changes that yanked the country out of the 19th century and into the modern age. In Strange Days, Ted Ferguson revisits dozens of stories that could only have happened in the ’20s—tales of serial killers, athletes, con men, crackpots, bathing beauties, and more—all of them nearly too amazing to believe and too entertaining to be forgotten.