Blood Lie

Years before WWII begins, latent hostility against the Jews erupts in a blood lie when Daisy, a young Gentile girl from Massena, New York, disappears in the woods.

It's September 22, 1928, Jack Pool's sixteenth birthday. Jack's been restless lately, especially during this season of more-times-at-the-synagogue than you can shake a stick at. If it wasn't Rosh Hashanah, then it was Yom Kippur, and if it wasn't Yom Kippur, it was the Sabbath. At least going to temple is good for some things. It gives him lots of time to daydream about a beautiful but inaccessible Gentile girl named Emaline.

When Emaline isn't on his mind, he's thinking about his music and imagining himself playing the cello with the New York Philharmonic. Yup, music is definitely his ticket out of Massena, New York. It's nothing but a remote whistle-stop town, and he doesn't want to be stuck there one more minute.

But Jack doesn't realize exactly how stuck he is until Emaline's little sister Daisy goes missing, and he and his family are accused of killing her for a blood sacrifice.

The Blood Lie is inspired by a real blood libel that took place when a small girl disappeared from Massena, New York, in 1928, and an innocent Jewish boy was called a murderer.