Trudy is afraid. She is pregnant with her third child and can’t imagine her life after her baby is born. She is also addicted to crack cocaine and can’t reconcile being an addict with being a mother.
Dr. Buck Bowden understands Trudy’s pain. He wants to help her, but he craves power and prestige more than his desire to help her. Buck’s greed and position enable him to enlist Trudy in his drug-dealing scheme.
Thus begins a complex story of loss, regret, and tragedy that interweaves the lives of an array of complicated characters in this new novel by Rose Mary Stiffin, PhD. Stiffin explores the depths of addiction but also injects her prose with moments of grace and hope. Casino Blues is a startling, poignant drama that will linger in your mind and in your heart.
This is the greatest gift Rose Stiffin offers in Casino Blues and her other critically acclaimed works of fiction: a compelling story with insight into our own lives and souls that entertains but also resonates in the memory long after the last page is read.
—Wayne Christensen, editor of Imagine Magazine for Literature and the Arts