Blood Sports by Eden Robinson

Anyone who has ever met Eden Robinson knows that she is spectacularly outgoing and generally a very happy person. She's one of those people who has an infectious laugh and when you're around her your happy-factor jumps up a notch.

Therefore, when reading Blood Sports it was initially hard for me to disconnect this brilliantly graphic book from Eden's happy persona. But that only lasted for a few chapters because she has this great ability to reach out to the reader and grab them by the collar and pull them right into the scene.

Blood Sports is the tough, gritty story of the brutal cat-and-mouse relationship between two cousins — Tom Bauer and Jeremy Reiger — set in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side.

Tom, a young man, hardly innocent, has been caught up over the years in Jeremy’s world of drugs, extortion, and prostitutes, while Jeremy, vindictive, vicious, either protects Tom or uses him, but always controls him. Added to the mix is Paulie, a junkie two years clean and Tom’s girlfriend, and also the mother of his daughter. This lethal triangle shifts when word gets out Tom has been talking to the police, and men from the past who have a lot to lose reappear. Suddenly Tom and Paulie are pawns in a much larger game, with everything at stake.

I really wish I had read this one with a book club because I would have loved to talk about so many things in this book. And the best part, IMHO, is that the ending is left up to your imagination. And by the end of this book...man, you're imagining things that you probably never would have dreamt of.