The Bolita Grift

In Jim Crow–era Florida, survival is a numbers game.

When Jerome “Redbone” Blake is pulled into the underground bolita lottery, he tells himself it’s temporary. A way to stay fed. A way to stay alive. But as land speculation, political corruption, and racial violence collide, Jerome learns that power doesn’t come from avoiding the system—it comes from mastering it.

Set against the backdrop of Florida’s early land boom, The Bolita Grift follows a man navigating a criminal economy where respectability is a performance and violence is often invisible. Every choice Jerome makes brings him closer to influence—and farther from the life he once imagined.

Book One of the Grit, Gamble and Grace saga, a historical crime series about ambition, community, and the moral cost of becoming indispensable.