Murder Most Foul
Gambled Dreams
by Jim Sanderson
Abbeville, SC: Moonshine Cove Publishing, 2021.
288 pp. $16.00 paperback.
Reviewed by
David Norman
While reading Jim Sanderson’s latest novel, Gambled Dreams, I thought of that old Biblical saying about the sins of the father visited upon the children. Certainly the two sons of the novel’s protagonist, Colton Parker, inherit their father’s taste for violence, and least one of them will struggle not to follow in his father’s footsteps. One man’s relentless pursuit of the truth haunts the next generation, and so it goes. Justice exacts a high cost.
Gambled Dreams takes place in Odessa, Texas, during the 1980s oil boom. Some readers might be tempted to look for parallels between this town and the Odessa made famous by the TV show Friday Night Lights, based on the film and book of the same name, but rest assured, Sanderson’s Odessa is different: rougher around the edges, more of the bars-and-brothels variety. Football looms in the periphery, but it’s a distant memory for Parker, who played strong safety in high school and college until his knee gave out.
Parker is haunted by his past and the dusty surroundings in which he finds himself. To call him an anti-hero would be an understatement. He demonstrates none of the eagerness or goal-driven resourcefulness of your typical detective hero, but then again, this is not your typical detective novel. It’s not a who done it so much as a let’s watch what happens after they’ve done it. In fact, we learn the identity of the killers, the two men who perpetrated the crime at the heart of the story—and their nicknames—before the first part of the book ends. More importantly, the novel deals with the consequences of pursuing justice at any cost. The offer of finding the killers comes from Bullet Price, a recruiter of prostitutes, who hires Parker to help find out who killed her best friend, Danny Fowler.
Bullet Price may be the most interesting and authentic character in the novel. At the opening, Bullet has already battled breast cancer and is not afraid to show her scars. She fears nothing. Sanderson dials up her bravado and bad-assery to eleven, but Bullet still manages to come across as a real survivor, someone who’s done her time and lived to tell her tale. When Parker joins the hunt, he realizes that the law—in the form of an inadequate deputy sheriff—will not help. Parker finds himself one whisky shot away from becoming a hitman. Since Fowler was gay and most likely targeted for his sexual orientation, no one in town has a pressing need for justice. The 1980s Odessa has no term for “hate crime,” but that doesn’t mean the reader can’t imagine it as such. It is a murder most foul.
With the law withering away faster than a desert flower, Nina Fowler offers Parker and his associates a sizable cash sum to catch her son’s killers. Readers will soon realize the investigation is not the story’s main driving force once Bullet recruits a young prostitute, to lure Danny’s killers into a motel room, where they let down their guard and promptly confess to the crime.
When Parker finds himself in a crisis, he talks to his father-in-law, Way Low, which is how Parker’s sons pronounce the Spanish “abuelo.” Way Low proves an unlikely confidante, but he’s a constant one. Like Bullet, Way Low has learned to survive. He carries an aura of wisdom and advises a son-in-law who’d rather drink away his troubles.
Without giving away too much of the plot, it’s fair to say that Parker follows Way Low’s advice; he goes after justice and suffers the consequences. Parker spends precious but short-lived moments with his sons, Arnie and Mando. These brief scenes make Parker’s character all the more tragic and confounding. If only he could be a more constant presence at home, he might not pass down the worst parts of himself to his children, but we know the fatherly role doesn’t square with someone of Parker’s itinerant nature.
The second and final part of the book is told from the point of view of Mando, the son who doesn’t end up in jail, who builds the kind of steady honest life his father always wanted for him. But the questions his father leaves unanswered draws Mando back into the fray, and we hold our breaths hoping the son won’t repeat the mistakes of a father he barely knew. One of Mando’s memorable traits is his ability as a runner. Mando’s relentless running echoes his father’s earlier relentless wandering. Even off the page, Parker haunts Mando. The father’s psychological injury mirrors the son’s physical injury in the form of a broken foot. With running no longer an option, how will Mando escape? Will he repeat his father’s mistakes? Such questions drive the tension in the book’s final pages.
Don’t expect a tidy resolution for Gambled Dreams. As the first half reminds us, it’s not about catching the killer so much as about the consequences of the search. Seeing those consequences unfold is what makes this book such an engaging read. The narrative pulls us forward, not at breakneck speed but at a good clip. It’s more of a train ride, bumpy at times, never barreling off the rails. Whether they admire the scenery or appreciate the ballast underneath, readers will enjoy Gambled Dreams. It’s well worth the ticket price.
David Norman is the author of two novels, The Watershed Project and South of Hannah. His short stories have appeared in The Best Small Fictions 2019, American Literary Review, Gulf Stream, and elsewhere. A former editor of Texas Books in Review, he earned his MFA from Texas State University.