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Title details for Passing Through a Prairie Country by Dennis E. Staples - Wait list

Passing Through a Prairie Country

A Novel

by Dennis E. Staples
ebook
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Wait time: About 2 weeks
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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 18, 2025

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781640096882

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781640096882
      • File size: 1580 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Booklist

      February 1, 2025
      A haunted casino has left the people of the Languille Lake reservation living in constant terror. Readers follow Marion Lafournier, an Ojibwe man who has returned home after a painful breakup. Marion turns to the slot machines at the Hidden Atlantis Casino for an escape from his troubles. It is there he encounters an entity known as "the sandman," a malevolent spirit. Now Marion and his cousin Alanna will be tasked with saving the lives and souls of those on their reservation by finally putting the spirits in Languille Lake to rest. Ojibwe author Staples (This Town Sleeps, 2020) draws on his culture in this darkly humorous and otherworldly thriller. The sense of timelessness and multiple points of view add to the novel's chaotic suspense, giving readers the impression they're trapped in an episode of Twin Peaks. This is a quick and unique read sure to appeal to thriller fans who also enjoy gothic horror.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Kirkus

      April 1, 2025
      From Ojibwe writer Staples, a hybrid of Native American mysticism and gothic paranormal horror. Since it was built decades ago on the Languille Lake reservation, the Hidden Atlantis Lake Resort has been haunted by a malevolent entity locals know, whisperingly, as the sandman, and by the ghosts, living and dead, whom he's sapped of their energies and robbed of their lives. These displaced souls shuffle about in the clock-free, no-cameras-allowed limbo of the casino and its surroundings, unable to move on. Enter Marion Lafournier, a young Ojibwe from the Bullhead clan who, fleeing a romantic disappointment, stops in for a bit of pain-numbing gambling. The susceptible Marion escapes only because his cousin Alana Bullhead, an employee who has the "sevenfire sight" and is thus attuned to the sandman and his predations, intervenes at the last second. Afterward Alana urges Marion, who's shown incipient signs of being able to navigate the spirit world of their ancestors, to help her battle this false spirit. Meanwhile, Glenn Nielan, an aspiring documentary filmmaker, arrives at the resort to record this beautiful place's essence, and also to do a bit of low-stakes gambling and relish the freedom that comes from being newly out of the closet--only to yield quickly to the state of lotus-eating uncaring that the sandman uses to entrap his victims. The sandman proves a much more formidable and resourceful adversary than Alana and Marion suspected and, ultimately, unable to trust what they see and hear, they have to take desperate, self-imperiling measures. The result is a shape-shifting, time-shifting, metaphor-shifting fever dream of a conclusion. Often chaotic and murky, but the suspense builds to a satisfying end.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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