The Curse: Big Time Gambling's Seduction of a Small New England Town by Robert Steele

Softcover. Condition: Like-new. 2012. First Edition, 1st Printing. Signed by author. Inscribed: "To Josephine with best wishes - Bob Steele"

During the 1990s, two Connecticut Indian tribes built the world's two biggest casinos in the southeastern corner of the state, resulting in what has been called a "gambling Chernobyl." The Curse is a novel set against those events. It begins in 1637 with the massacre of the Pequot Indians and a curse delivered by a Pequot sachem to the young English soldier who is about to kill him. The story then jumps 350 years as the soldier's thirteenth-generation descendant, Josh Williams, becomes embroiled in a battle to stop a new-minted Indian tribe from building a third casino that threatens his town and ancestral home. The lure of easy money drives everyone from the tribe's chief to a shadowy Miami billionaire, venal politicians, and Providence mobsters, while a small, quintessential New England town must choose between preserving its character or accepting an extraordinary proposal that will change it forever. As the battle over the casino reaches a climax, Josh discovers startling truths about his family's past - including centuries-old events that appear to be impacting the present with devastating effect