A darkly humorous thriller about the ghosts that haunt the temples of excess we call casinos, and the people caught in their high-stakes, low-odds web...
A darkly humorous thriller about the ghosts that haunt the temples of excess we call casinos, and the people caught in their high-stakes, low-odds web For decades, a dark force has terrorized the Languille Lake reservation. Spoken of only in whispers as "the sandman," he lurks in the Hidden Atlantis Lake Resort and Casino, the reservation's main attraction and source of revenue, leeching its patrons' dreams and preventing the ghosts that linger there from moving on. Fleeing a breakup, Marion Lafournier, a midtwenties Ojibwe, seeks solace in the slot machine's siren song. Here he falls afoul of the sandman, an encounter he barely escapes through the timely intervention of his cousins Alana and Cherie, who both work at the casino and are intimately aware of the sandman's power. Meanwhile, Glenn Nielan, recently out of the closet and an aspiring documentarian, hopes to capture the faces of the Ojibwe land while experiencing the casino's thrills. But he will learn that all who choose to play the sandman's games are in danger of falling into his grasp.
Marion and Alana are members of the Bullhead clan, a family with ties to a sacred past and a fierce determination to ensure their future. Alana, with her sevenfire sight, is the only person to fully understand the danger the sandman poses. Aware of Marion's occasional ability to navigate the spirit world, she enlists his aid in defeating this wraith. But the power and reach of the sandman go far beyond Alana's worst fears. Soon she and Marion find themselves in a battle for their lives and for the souls of the reservation's residents, both the living and the dead.
Author: Dennis E. Staples
Publisher: Counterpoint LLC
Published: 03/18/2025
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.60w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781640096875
Review Citation(s): Booklist 02/01/2025 pg. 34
Publishers Weekly 03/17/2025
About the AuthorDENNIS E. STAPLES is an Ojibwe writer from Bemidji, Minnesota, and the author of
This Town Sleeps. He holds an MFA in fiction from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is a graduate of the 2018 Clarion West Writers Workshop and a recipient of the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship. His work has appeared in
Asimov's Science Fiction and
Nightmare magazine. He is a member of the Red Lake Nation.
