Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Girl in the Glass: A Novel

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Unlikely Heroes

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2018

Con men, carnival people in 1932 America were still able to “make a killing” off the fortunate wealthy. In this story, the seance is the major tool of a master con man and his young protege, an illegal Mexican refugee who poses as a young Hindu mystic. A perfect opportunity presents itself when a young girl goes missing. Her wealthy parents are suckers for the occult seance of this group and what begins as the usual money making scam turns into a murder mystery. Not only is the young girl a murder victim, the “mystics” find themselves embroiled in a series of events that uncover weird biological experiments by a sinister group of wealthy individuals who sound like precursors to the Nazi movement in later years. A thoroughly entertaining read.

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Jordan Hofer

Not one of Ford’s better novels

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018

The first half of the novel is fantastic and fantastical, the story of spiritualist charlatans who find themselves in way over their heads. Very strong and likable characters.
The second half of the book loses its way by introducing mad eugenists and circus freaks. It read as if two books had been smushed into one.

3 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Hank Lajoie

Unlikely Heroes

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2018

Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2016

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I was absorbed from the first paragraph in Girl in the Glass and was engrossed till the end. Ford does a good job of depicting Depression era Long Island. The narrator, an illegal immigrant orphan, has a surrogate training him in con games. A band of unusual characters serves as his family. Did the surrogate father, Thomas Schell, really see a missing girl in the window pane? In searching for her, the unusual "family" uncovers a KKK plan to eliminate all who are not part of a pure "Master Race". A thoroughly enjoyable book; I was sorry when the book ended.

4 people found this helpful

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Cheryl

Interesting historical mystery

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2022

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What starts as a story about a trio of con men bilking the rich during the Great Depression turns into a murder mystery involving secret eugenics research and experimentation. Great details capture what was going on in America at the time.

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Jordan Hofer

Not one of Ford’s better novels

Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2018

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3 people found this helpful

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Richard Bowes

SCAMS AND BUTTERFLIES

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2005

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Writing this, I'm torn between describing the strengths of this elegant and compelling novel or just telling you that there are still a few weeks of summer left and that The Girl In The Glass will be the beach book of your dreams.

Ford catches the spirit of The Thin Man, both Hammett's novel and the Powell/Loy movies that followed, and mixes that with deft dashes of magic and some darker tones. Set in the bitter Depression year of 1932 on a Long Island from which the Great Gatsby would have only recently departed, the novel catches the special mystery of a lost time and place where rural back roads, led to lavish beach-front estates and liquor smuggling was a local industry.

Young Diego, a Mexican immigrant, is a wonderfully engaging narrator. Through him we see Thomas Schell and Anthony Cleopatra, a master con man and his assistant, making hay among the well to do and easily fooled. Then, in the middle of a phony séance, Schell, a dealer in sleight-of-hand, a collector of exotic butterflies sees the inexplicable reflection of a girl on a pane of glass. Against a backdrop of kidnapping and murder, both Diego and Schell find romance and the fly underworld of carnival freaks and flim-flam collides with the deeply disturbing one of eugenics cults.

I came to love this little band of scam artists enough that I was sorry when the pages ran out and the book ended. In summer or in any other season, I think you'll love them too.

30 people found this helpful

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ladymaria

Can we connect with the other side?

Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2016

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It was a little slow in the beginning, but in retrospect it was needed to tell where these people were at the start of the book. Each one carried a lot of baggage from life. They all had reasons for making their living the way they did, conning people. They fooled people for money. It showed that there are redeeming qualities in every one, rich or poor, good or bad.The girl he saw was real and he wanted more answers. It led to an explanation that no one liked, and endangered their lives. I guess the characters are like onions. You unwind them one layer at a time, but in the end, good things come to people who deserve it. Very entertaining!

One person found this helpful

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Gridley

The Con of Eugenics

Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2012

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A friend who had become interested in a genre novel of mine, began singing the praises of Ford's novels, and mostly out of politeness, I decided to download one as an e-book and give it a read. I'm glad I did.

There's nothing literarily splendid about Ford's prose here, but then I doubt such was intended. Instead, Ford is a spellbinding storyteller. His prose, while somewhat generic, flows like butter, and you can't help but turn page after page. There's a wink and a nod to postmodern sensibilities, however, because the principal characters, protagonists and antagonists, have multiple identities, and he does a bit of deconstructing of early twentieth-century America.
The main three characters, Diego, Henry, and Thomas are con men, you see, thriving on that fin de siecle preoccupation of the wealthy: spiritualism. Following a seance, Thomas seems to have seen a girl's image in a window, and five days later the same girl was reported dead. Our three cons decide to investigate the death - gratis. As you might suspect, the story takes all sorts of turns, but the most surprising element is Ford's take on the U.S.`s Eugenics movement, which preceded Hitler's persecution of minorities and World War II. The author is hardly ham-handed in bringing this disgraceful moment of U.S. history to the fore; instead, it's worked seamlessly into the plot and characterizations.
And as you might expect, the characters, while engaging, are given short shrift until story's end, and if I were to offer a single change to the book, it would be to present this end-of-story dwelling on character much earlier, perhaps at the beginning.

This is a fun read, but it informs as easily as it entertains. Ford has clearly mastered his genre.

5 people found this helpful

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Never read anything like it before!

Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2020

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Not wanting to give anything away to spoil the story for readers, simply know that this was quite a trip! This was a fascinating, funny, "never saw that coming" kind of story. Don't miss it. One character used foul language, but that word can just be ignored!

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Chip

Do yourself a favor - read this book!

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2016

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Thank you Jeffrey Ford for a most enjoyable read. I liked everything about your book. The characters were interesting. The story was intriguing. The writing was IMHO excellent. With a different ending, the story could have been extended into a second book - there could have been many interesting possibilities. Maybe, I just didn't want to lose my connection with the main characters. I encourage everyone to at least order the sample and you should know right away whether this is your type of read.

2 people found this helpful

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scn

an excellent mix of all that's needed for a good read

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2016

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The writing is witty, the plot outrageous but engaging, the characters are embraceable and good battles evil. Although much in the story is well outside "normal" it all melds into a thoroughly enjoyable tale that so satisfyingly ends with good triumphing over evil but so realistically emphasizing it was just one battle and the war wages on.

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The Girl in the Glass: A Novel

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