This was a nice change from seemingly the same story line. I found the story a bit slow but that may have been the choppy way I was able to read it.

In Jeffrey Ford's The Girl in the Glass, reality is a con, at least according to illegal Mexican immigrant Diego, his foster father Thomas Schell, and ex-circus strongman Antony Cleopatra. In 1932 Long Island, this diverse trio of confidence men pose as a team of spiritual mediums. Their marks are the city's naive wealthy. During a séance, the group's leader, Schell, experiences a ghastly vision of a murdered young girl, and even though it could destroy their livelihood, he decides to use their

A group of scam artists help a man whose young daughter has disappeared - FREE! Even free help has problens as the group discovers his daughter was murdered and more murders occur. It was such a good read! The author did very nice research including the activity of the Ku Klux Klan in the Long Island area, the role of scam artists and spiritualists during the 1930s, the Repatriotism of Mexicans during the depression and other topics. This story was original and exciting. I commend Jeffrey Ford f...

Stories within stories. Cons within cons. Jeffrey Ford is a HELL of a writer. "The Girl in the Glass" is one of those novels that will stick with me forever. Every bit the equal of "The Great Gatsby" or "Of Mice and Men." It's that special.The Plot: 3 con men pretend to be "spiritualists" during the Great Depression to fleece rich people, thereby making a living off of the dead. The protagonist is Diego, a seventeen year old illegal immigrant from Mexico who is essentially adopted by Thomas Sche...

As he has done times before, Jeffrey Ford has captured my attention and my heart. This novel is captivating on all levels. The characters are deep, real, and full of life. The plot is well paced, the themes heartbreaking and hopeful, and the motifs, well, blue morpho? monarch? white pine? anybody? yeah, they are there too.If you are familiar with Fords work, then you know what to expect. If your not, then you are in for a treat. Ford's words flow like a stream off of the page. He is simple to re...

5☆ Hands down. This was such a cool story, full of wit, thrills and adventure. The characters were cunning and heartwarming. This book went beyond my expectations. I was expecting some supernatural romp, but it was a lot more than that, all packed tight in just under 300 pages. (The book is only 280 pages, so Goodreads is incorrect) Highly recommend this book to anyone! Can't wait to try out more works by Jeff Ford!

Jeffrey Ford is a genius. One of the best writers alive today. I can't say it enough!The Girl in the Glass takes place in Depression-era New York, where con man Schell and his team (teenaged illegal Mexican immigrant Diego and strongman Antony Cleopatra) make a living bilking the "true believer" rich folks to want to make contact with the dead. One night, during a routine seance, Schell unexpectedly sees something he and his team didn't rig up beforehand -- the ghost of a little girl. Schell, wh...

An unusual story with a carnival cast of characters; the story line contains both the fantastic and the mundane, happily entwined. Our good guys are con men who run fake seances for the rich and muddled. It is depression time in the U.S. but our "spiritualists" including Ondoo the swami, are doing well. But something unusual happens during one of the seances which leads our good guys to running cons in the search for a missing little girl. Our bad guys reflect some shameful people and ideas; the...

What a great book! It has everything a reader could want: mystery - a whodunit; entertainment - a séance with all of the theatrics; education - teaching the reader some of the magic tricks used by the hucksters/ grifters; and romance - a little bit of young love to complicate all the other action going on.As with much terrific fiction, this novel is one that the reader will not want to put down once she has started reading it.And again, with such a great author as Jeffrey Ford, the reader will w...

This is a mystery worthy of Poe. Deserving of its Edgar Award, it does the reader the courtesy of letting them in on how the mystery is solved rather than revealing the guilty too early in the story. Throw in some illusions, card tricks, phony seances, a room full of butterflies, carny folk and meetings with nerdy librarians and what's not to love?

What a gem of a book. I was intrigued by the story of conmen, seances, and life on the fringe in 1930s US in the midst of prohibition and the Depression, not realizing it's on the brink of WWII. What made the book so affecting, however, was the real focus of the story - the real "monster" - that only became apparent midway through. The focus of this book couldn't be more timely as the current US mimics pre-WWII times and "Patriots" form behind a monied self-serving leader highlighting prejudice

3.5--This story sucked me right in. The story is told by Diego, a 17-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, in 1932 New York. He works with two other con men (Schell and Antony), holding seances for (and at the expense of) grieving wealthy clients. Then, during one of these seances, Schell (the boss) sees the image of a girl in a pane of glass. A supenseful page-turner. I would have given it a 4, except 1)Antony's favorite swear word, while no doubt accurately used, got a little tiresome after a wh...

This is the most well-rounded book I've read in a long time. It has history, humor, action, suspense, love, and a colorful and endearing cast of characters. I found it enjoyable consistently from start to finish and will definitely be checking into Ford's other books.

I read my first Ford short story online a few months ago, followed by a couple that I found in anthologies. A few weeks ago I followed that up with one of his story collections, followed immediately by this novel. I thought the stories were excellent, but they did not prepare me for this lovely novel. The prose feels effortless, which takes a lot of effort on the author's part. The book is set on Long Island in the 1930s, and the setting feels authentic. The characters are well developed and fee...

The initial setup of the book is interesting, but the end was a letdown for me.

I was expecting more of a ghost story, for some reason, and what I got was a feel-good, rollicking adventure with a zany cast of characters, including circus freaks and a by-golly Evil Mad Scientist--yowzah! What the heck, I'm at the beach. Sun, sand, surf, and an entertaining, unintellectual novel--vacation at its finest.

WHAT A SURPRISE! Not at all the kind of book I usually go for. Con men with a heart. Loved Anthony and the coming of age of Diego and of course, Thomas Schell. The 1930's on Long Island, the Depression, Prohibition and the KKK and early master race followers are all part of a very clever and fast moving story. I didn't know there was a move in the 1930's to send Mexicans back after they were no longer needed as cheap labor during the depression. Same old scape goats, I guess. Mr. Ford's writing

Set in Depression New York, mostly Long Island, a group of scam artists exploits the sorrow and foolishness of the rich, pretending to speak to the “other side” so that they might communicate with departed loved ones. All is well until the chief of the operation sees what may be a real ghost, that of a missing child. There are fun characters, untroubled by excessive complexity, plenty of action sequences, a slight bit of payload re the scams, and what seemed to me a strained attempt to fill this...

This book is set in the 20's and 30's about a group of con-men doing "seance" sessions and contacting the "other side." Taking place during the Great Depression, the cons trick their "marks" into believing they truly are receiving messages from passed loved ones, etc. Until they get involved in a con that nearly claims all their lives and puts them on the tracks of a mad scientist doing horrific human experimentation. Solving murder, rescuing friends, romance and tricking the nations wealthiest

This wonderful book was pressed upon me by an employee in one of the bookstores I signed in earlier this year, and many, many thanks are due. It's a tale set in the 1930s, during the long stupidity of prohibition, about three con artists whose specialty is seances, and their encounter with what just might be a real ghost that, in turn, leads them into exploring a particularly heinous murder. I loved this book, which won an Edgar in 2005 for best paperback original, and promptly went out and boug...