Enlarge Image
To embed a link to this book on your own website, please copy the script below.
A high school football star who chooses a tour of duty in Afghanistan over a potentially lucrative career in the pros. A woman whose career as a nine-ball champion was cut short at the Nationals. A motorcycle accident that leaves a boy in a wheelchair. A gun containing a single ... Read more
A high school football star who chooses a tour of duty in Afghanistan over a potentially lucrative career in the pros. A woman whose career as a nine-ball champion was cut short at the Nationals. A motorcycle accident that leaves a boy in a wheelchair. A gun containing a single bullet. Fires destroying homes throughout Regina. An elusive best friend who makes an incredible and awful sacrifice.
And Ruby Yee’s spicy black bean balls.
All of these factors come together when Curtis Mays, football star and local hero, returns home unexpectedly to find his city mourning the death of a little girl — the granddaughter of Saskatchewan’s wealthiest man. As he begins to piece together what has happened, and how his actions may have helped cause it, he realizes that you can try to outrun the past, but you can never escape it.
John Jantunen is also the author of Cipher, No Quarter, and A Desolate Splendor. He has lived in almost every region of Canada and currently lives in Kingston, Ontario.
"Motorcycles, pool halls, and spicy black bean balls provide a lively, palpable backdrop for one of the most gripping psychological suspense stories I've ever read. Each sentence pops and crackles with originality and wit. John Jantunen's dark intelligence is a welcome addition to Canadian crime fiction." — Robin Spano, author of Death's Last Run
"A virtuosic new writer hits the literary stage with this genre bending novel about friendship so deep it cuts to bone. A compelling deeply moral tale that is most akin to the Scandinavian masters of crime fiction." —Sharon Riis, author of The True Story of Ida Johnson and Midnight Twilight Tourist Zone
"John Jantunen spins a convoluted tale of violence and betrayal, driven by the kind of fears that well up in tortured souls on lonely nights. The Prairie locale adds its own sense of alienation and impending doom. An impressive first novel." —John Lawrence Reynolds, author of Beach Strip
Sign Up or Sign In to add your review or comment.
It pleases me to bump into deeply humanized Bad Mother characters, for I am always interested in contemporary women writers writing about the complicated accordion of the mother-self dyad. A culture that truly cares about women must care about our full range of selfhood, bad ... Read more
John Jantunen’s debut novel combines conventions from several genres: mystery, thriller, and literary fiction. He wrote it to both entertain and provoke, citing the Idle No More Movement, homophobia in professional sports, and PTSD in soldiers all as inspiration for Cipher ... Read more
Today's poem highlights our most Eastern province, the last stop in our cross-country tour, Newfoundland. Pulled from The Breakwater Book of Contemporary Newfoundland Poetry (Breakwater Books, 2013), edited by Mark Callanan and James Langer, we're featuring Mary Dalton's poem ... Read more
Copyright © 2021 All Lit Up. All Rights Reserved.
All Lit Up is produced by the Literary Press Group and LitDistCo. LPG and LitDistCo acknowledge the financial support of the Department of Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council.
All views expressed by bloggers and contributors to the All Lit Up blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of All Lit Up or the Literary Press Group.
All Lit Up acknowledges we are hosted on the lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinaabeg, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat. We also recognize the enduring presence of all First Nations, Métis and the Inuit people, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to meet and work on this territory.
