Let's face it, everyone loves a good ghost story - strange shadows in rocking chairs, windows that open without a breath of wind. It's the stuff of Transylvania. But how many of us would pick meek old Melbourne for a ghost town? Stranger still, imagine tour groups led by a professional ghostbuster scouring the city for spirits.

Drew Sinton, owner of The Haunted Bookshop, says he knows of about 50 ghosts in the CBD, and more than 100 "personalities without bodies" in suburbia. His eyes disclose the intensity of a lifelong passion which has seen him devote the past 10 years to the active pursuit of spooks.

Five nights a week, dressed from top to toe in black, the articulate occultist runs ghost tours through some of Melbourne's most historical sites ...