A gritty tale of how far we’ll go to protect the ones we love for fans of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone from Gale Massey, a talented new name in crime fiction.Everyone says the Elders family are nothing but cheats, thieves, and convicts—a fact nineteen-year old Jamie Elders has been trying desperately to escape. She may have the natural talent of a poker savant, but her dreams of going pro and … her dreams of going pro and getting the hell out of the tiny town of Blind River, New York are going nowhere fast. Especially once she lands in a huge pile of debt to her uncle Loyal.
At Loyal’s beck and call until her debt is repaid, Jamie can’t easily walk away—not with her younger brother Toby left at his mercy. So when Loyal demands Jamie’s help cleaning up a mess late one night, she has no choice but to agree. But disposing of a dead man and covering up his connection to the town’s most powerful judge goes beyond family duty. When it comes out that the victim was a beloved athlete and Loyal pins the murder on Toby, only Jamie can save him. But with a dogged detective on her trail and her own future at stake, she’ll have to decide: embrace her inner criminal, or defy it—and face the consequences.
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The Girl from Blind River is a fast-paced, impressive debut novel from Gale Massey. In it we meet Jamie Elders, a young woman of nineteen who’s trapped in Blind River, a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business and in which children are pegged from birth to follow family bloodlines.
When Jamie and her brother were young, their mother was sent to prison. Their uncle Loyal took them in, saving them from the “evils” of the Social Services Department. Anxious to break away and branch out on her own, Jamie wants to head to Florida to make money on the professional poker circuit. She learned cards from her mother early on and has the instincts of a savant, yet her age and inexperience necessarily mean she is somewhat naive. She also can’t leave Blind River as long as her brother Toby is in the care of the abusive Loyal who is in cahoots with a corrupt judge.
Jamie’s naiveté also leads her to a going-nowhere affair with a married man who uses her for more than just sex—he films her in a sex tape without her knowledge. Despite her faults, she is well-rounded, but resourceful, smart, and strong. Her backstory is sprinkled in judiciously. The other characters are also well-rounded. No one, however, is totally innocent
Massey does a terrific job amping up the tension. Jamie borrows from the money she collects from Loyal’s illegal gambling machines and loses it. In fiasco after fiasco, she grows deeper in debt to her snake of an uncle. Only when a detective from out of town convinces her to tell the truth of what she knows does Jamie see an end to her life in Blind River.
This is a truly amazing debut book: A “country noir” (a phrase the author of Winter’s Bone uses) set in a dying little town in Upstate New York, Girl from Blind River transcends mere crime fiction. There is a lot of truth in the book. Pacing is fast, story is tense, characters are well-drawn and complex. Gale Massey has the eyes of an artist in describing scenes, the voice of a poet in her often lyrical language, and the pure storyteller’s talent for spinning an engrossing, compelling and evocative tale. Don’t miss this book. It’s just plain great!
The Girl from Blind River by Gale Massey
Small town
Corrupt Judge
Evil uncle
Troubled brother
Deceased father
Mother on parole
Married lover
Deck stacked against you
Where do you turn?
Jamie seems lost to me – in more ways than one. Her only true interests seem to be poker and getting out of town to move to a place she will be warmer and…can play poker. Her family is not one to want to emulate. The things she does to survive are hard to understand. In fact…though the lives of the people in the story are well fleshed out and I did get to know them I had trouble relating to them. I have mixed feelings on this one. I guess I didn’t feel closure for Jamie or her brother and wish there had been some. That said, life doesn’t always give us or book characters a happy ending.
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC – This is my honest review.
3-4 Stars
Life can be tough living in a small town where everyone knows everyone. It can be even tougher when your family has a terrible reputation. When Jamie’s mother goes to prison her and her brother Toby move in with their Uncle Loyal. Loyal is a con man, running crooked poker games and gambling machines. Jamie is forced to work for her uncle and to help him hide a dead body. Will Jamie and her brother ever get away from Loyal and have a better life? A very well written story, I would definitely recommend this book.
Gale Massey’s debut novel The Girl from Blind River from Crooked Lane Books is a dark page turner about Jamie Elders, a young woman trying to survive in a town where the doors to normal life have all been nailed shut long before she could even reach the knobs. Raised by a criminal uncle, beholden to a crooked judge, daughter of an ex-con, and sister to an unbalanced brother prone to unhinged violence, Massey’s strong protagonist must walk the dirty line between crime and freedom to see her dream of leaving town come true. Reminiscent of Daniel Woodrell’s Winter’s Bone, and written with crisp and vivid prose, Massey’s words let the reader disappear into Jamie Elders’ small-town world and cheer when the girl finally finds her way out of Blind River.
It all comes down to choices.
The Elders family are known as con-men, liars, cheats, all around the sort of people you don’t want your children associating with. Teenager Jamie gets caught in the middle while trying desperately to leave this small town and her family.
One bad decision on her part puts her at her uncle’s mercy. Because of what she did, she now owes her uncle an insane amount of money … and she has to stay until it’s all repaid. And then there is her younger brother, Toby. Could she walk away and leave him behind?
One night her uncle demands that Jamie help him … dispose of a murdered man cover up his connection to the town’s most powerful judge. When it comes out that the victim was a beloved athlete and uncle pins the murder on Toby, only Jamie can save him. But with a dogged detective on her trail and her own future at stake, she’ll have to decide: embrace her inner criminal, or defy it—and face the consequences.
Jamie is one smart cookie .. but is she smart enough to stay ahead of the law to save her brother ..and herself?
This is a down-and-dirty look at illegal gambling and corruption that reaches the upper echelon of this small town. The people of this community are not always nice people … mostly who Jamie has to deal with seem to live on the edge of humanity.
This is a riveting debut novel, slowly moving heating up to an inferno with characters that stick with the reader far after reading the last page. There are twists and turns along the way to keep the reader rapidly turning pages to see what happens next.
Many thanks to the author / Crooked Lane Books for the advanced digital copy of this most fascinating debut novel. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.