Crime Mystery set in 1911 Kensington (LONDON)
Talking Location With …. Gabriel Tait: TORONTO
12th November 2026
#TalkingLocationWith…. Gabriel Tait, author of Meeks: TORONTO
When I started writing Meeks, I had it set in the United States. I’m Canadian, so I began researching the places where I intended to set the novel. That became an untenable route. If I’m being honest, I was too lazy to do all the research required, and I didn’t feel it was authentic to write about somewhere I’d never been.
So I came back to what I knew: the Canadian Prairies, which I’ve visited many times, and Toronto, where I was born and raised.
Meeks begins on the Prairies in 1979, before moving into Ranleigh Meeks’s adult life in Toronto in 1997. The contrast is substantial. We go from a small town, a rodeo and an enormous sky to warehouse night shifts, subway journeys, restaurants and shopping streets. But even within Toronto, Ranleigh encounters very different versions of the same city.
Yorkville is central to that.
For Ranleigh, the neighborhood represents a life far removed from the one he knows as a warehouse worker. There are expensive clothes, restaurants, money and recognition. He wants access to all of it. The geography makes that desire tangible: the life he wants is close enough to walk through, even when he can’t afford to participate.
Hemingway’s © Gabriel Tait
The Colonnade on Bloor Street is an important part of that world. In the novel, it becomes the address of a luxurious penthouse, with views toward Lake Ontario and Rosedale. Below are the boutiques of the Mink Mile. Ranleigh remembers passing the building as a teenager after seeing a film at the University Theatre across the street. It is already part of his personal map of Toronto before it takes on another significance.
From there, the reader can follow him along Bloor, down Cumberland Street and into Old York Lane. He stops to examine a mural depicting the lane’s earlier life before heading into Remy’s restaurant at its northern end. Remy’s was a real Yorkville restaurant, although it has since closed.
I like the specificity of that walk. There are shopping bags in his hands, something that catches his attention, somewhere to sit down and order a drink. The neighborhood becomes part of what he is doing, rather than something described separately from the story.
Hemingway’s on Cumberland Street also appears. Restaurants and bars give Ranleigh places to meet people and try on the life he believes he should be living. But the book doesn’t stay with the appealing surfaces of that world.
The Colonnade, Bloor Street © Gabriel Tait
A short distance away, at Yonge and Charles, there is a very different atmosphere. The novel places a twenty-four-hour gym above a McDonald’s, a few doors from a strip club. This is where another part of Ranleigh’s story develops. The proximity matters: the expensive shops and restaurants of Yorkville sit close to somewhere much less polished. He doesn’t have to cross the city to move between them.
Cumberland Terrace offers another contrast. Later in the book, Ranleigh finds temporary shelter in its food court. There are fluorescent lights, scattered tables, tired food kiosks and the sound of trains near Bay subway station. Upstairs are wooden benches and planters. Eventually, he emerges onto Yonge Street across from the Toronto Reference Library.
That setting serves a very different purpose from the penthouse. A shopping mall can offer anonymity, somewhere to sit without having to explain yourself. Ranleigh’s experience of the city changes with his circumstances. Places associated with spending money and enjoying yourself can also become places to hide.
The Prairie opening has its own distinct surroundings: his grandmother’s enclosed porch, gravel roads, the Kinglin Rodeo, the midway, horse paddocks and a drive-in beneath the open sky. For a child visiting from Toronto, even the silence feels different. The smells, distances and unfamiliar routines all register.
Those details were easier to approach once I stopped trying to place the story somewhere I didn’t know. For the first two books, relatively little formal research was required. I did revisit areas of Toronto to make sure I had the look and feel right.
The city in Meeks belongs to 1997, and some of its places belong to Ranleigh’s earlier memories. I wasn’t trying to write a guide to present-day Toronto. I was telling the story of someone whose relationship with his surroundings becomes increasingly troubled.
Knowing those surroundings gave me something solid to work with. Ranleigh might struggle to understand what is happening to him, but the reader can still follow him down a recognizable street.
GABRIEL TAIT
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