During the Great Depression there was little hope for a boy born into the slums of Cabbagetown, Toronto. But Jack Spayd is offered a ticket out in the form of a Hohner harmonica, won by his brutal, drunken father in a late-night card game. Jack makes music as a way to escape his surroundings, and his talent lends him to a jazz club and, eventually, to the jazz piano. Jack of Diamonds is the spellbinding final novel of a beloved storyteller, a tale of a young, talented man fighting to achieve his ambitions and using his considerable talents to find his way in a perilous world.