Samuel W. Gailey

Deep Winter by Samuel W. Gailey is highly recommended debut novel of suspense for those with a taste for noir set in a frozen rural landscape.

It is the dead of winter and Danny Bedford, a mentally challenged man, is framed by the real killer as the murderer of Mindy Knolls, one of the few people in the small town of Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, who is his friend. As the body count rises, this dark novel is told from the point of view of several different characters.

Is Deep Winter by Samuel W. show more Gailey good?
Oh, yes - it is very good and had me racing to the end to see what could possibly happen next. Here is the dilemma: it is unrelentingly violent, feels hopeless, and everyone - save a few timid souls- is a nasty piece of business who enjoy bullying a mentally challenged man. There seems to be debauchery and drug use and excessive drinking and guns and murders happening left and right. I read it at a break-neck pace right to the end but I hated almost all the characters and wondered why on earth anyone would want to live someplace where everyone is a jerk with greasy unwashed hair. I felt emotionally drained after I was done reading.

So, Deep Winter held me by the throat and had me frantically reading to the end but I was angry at almost all the characters (and the author, truth be told, until the very end) but I had to keep reading to find out what happened because it couldn't get any worse and then when it did I had to keep reading just to see if....
Hmmm...
I have to guess that my very emotional reaction to Deep Winter was exactly what author Gailey planned. Well played. I'll be looking forward to Gailey's next novel.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Penguin Books via Edelweiss for review purposes. show less

Deep Winter is a bleak and brutal book that is written in a sparse and beautiful style. I wish I could've enjoyed the story as much as I did the writing style.

There are only four sympathetic characters in the book: Mindy, the murder victim; the older couple in town who run the laundromat; and Danny Bedford, a young man who suffered a childhood brain trauma that left him disabled. He has a job maintaining the laundromat. He has his own place to live. He's never hurt anyone in his life, but show more he's had to get used to being either ignored or being the butt of cruel jokes because he's "different." Unfortunately these four characters are incidental to the plot.

Instead the story focuses on Deputy Sheriff Mike Sokowski. Deep Winter is the portrait of a drunk only lightly touched with intelligence but filled to overflowing with greed, hatred, and violence. As the pages turned, I wanted to sweep Sokowski under the rug-- pretend he didn't exist. But I couldn't look away. Gailey created a character who truly frightened me.

Backing up Sokowski is Carl, his weak-willed satellite; Lester the sheriff, an old man looking retirement right in the face and willing to skate along the path of least resistance; and a community of people who look the other way if a situation doesn't directly concern them. The more I read, the more I despised these people. How can you ignore an impending train wreck? Isn't it easier to deal with something right now instead of waiting until there's a body count?

And then I realized that I didn't like myself much either. What did I say a couple of paragraphs ago? I said that I wanted to sweep Sokowski under the rug... pretend that he didn't exist. Just like all those townspeople had been doing for years. Time for me to climb down off my high horse.

Yes, Deep Winter is a powerfully written book, and it made me think. It also deeply depressed me. It's definitely the sort of book you need to be in the right mood to read. show less

Samuel W. Gailey’s debut release Deep Winter is a dark, gritty and extremely violent yet compelling novel. The town of Wyalusing, PA is stunned by the brutal murder of Mindy Knolls, but even more shocking is the apparent identity of her killer-Danny Bedford, a gentle giant whose near drowning as a child left him with diminished mental capacity.

Ostracized by most of the townspeople, Danny lives a quiet and mostly solitary life. He and Mindy have been friends since childhood and Mindy can show more always be counted on to defend Danny from the town's bullies. They share a long and complicated past with Mike Sokowski, a local Deputy and Mindy's violent on again/off again boyfriend. Danny, Mindy, and Sokowski's worlds tragically collide one snowy night in 1984 in a horrific act of violence and the biggest mystery is not who killed Mindy, but what will become of Danny Bedford.

Told from multiple points of view, Deep Winter is a riveting, character driven novel. Of course, Danny is the most sympathetic character and the unfolding events are mostly beyond his comprehension. One of the other likable character is the Lester, the town sheriff. Close to retirement age, he is still sharp as a tack but it takes him a while to piece together the evidence from the crime scene. Called in to assist in the investigation, State Trooper Bill Taggart is an alcoholic who is more of a liability than an asset. Deputy Mike Sokowski is not only at the bottom of the law enforcement barrel, but he is the personification of evil. Alcoholic, corrupt and self-indulgent, he is unrepentant and ruthless as he continues on his unrelenting path of destruction with the help of his spineless lackey, Carl.

Deep Winter is a disquieting read that I found impossible to put down. It is not traditional mystery but there is plenty of action and suspense. The story is desolate, and while it seems like any type of positive outcome is impossible, Samuel W. Gailey ends the novel on a surprisingly hopeful note.

All in all, Deep Winter is an impressive first novel and I am looking forward to Samuel W. Gailey's next release. show less

The Guilt We Carry by Samuel W. Gailey is a highly recommended thriller and tale of redemption.

In 2005 promising swimming star 15-year-old Alice O’Farrell is left to babysit her 4-year-old brother, Jason. He makes a huge fingernail polish mess in her bedroom and Alice yells at him. While she is trying to clean up the nail polish, Jason makes his way to the basement and somehow manages to trap himself in the dryer and dies. Guilt-ridden, Alice ran away from home soon after this. Six years show more later, she is an alcoholic working as a bartender at a strip joint in Harrisburg, PA. Since she ran away before she had a driver's license or a credit card, Alice has lived under the radar and moves frequently to avoid making any friends.

When she wakes up after another drunken night next to the dead body of her boss, she needs a drink to figure out what to do. Next, she looks around the trailer and finds a bag with drugs and $91,000 in cash. The cash could give Alice a way out and up from the pit she is in, but the cash is tied to the drug dealer involved. Soon, Alice finds herself on the run, trying to stay away from the drug dealer who relentlessly pursues her, wanting her dead and his cash back. Even while on the run, Alice can't help but see a predatory man trying to take advantage of a teenage runaway and, recognizing the scenario, she intervenes, inadvertently adding another dimension to her escape.

This is a tense, taunt, riveting thriller - violent, dark, and gritty. The scenes in the novel are very descriptive and visual, starting with Alice's promising skill as a swimmer to her excessive drinking to escape. The detailed descriptions continue throughout the narrative, increasing the anxiety and stress as you follow Alice's route to escape and the close pursuit of the drug kingpin who thinks nothing of leaving bodies in his wake.

I flew through The Guilt We Carry. Alice is a flawed, but sympathetic well-developed character. Even while recognizing her flaws and failings, you will be hoping she escapes and finds a way out of the downward spiral she is in. While it is obvious a showdown of sorts will happen, the lead-up to it is intense. You will want her to find closure and redemption, and perhaps even a reconciliation and forgiveness with her parents. The supporting characters in the novel are also fairly well-developed and interesting.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Oceanview Publishing.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2018/12/the-guilt-we-carry.html show less