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Loading... Deadman's Pokerby James Swain
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Another Tony Valentine novel, with son Gerry getting into his usual trouble with boyhood friends from Atlantic City. Most of the excitement revolves around a blind poker player cheating in a Texas hold'em tournament. ( ) In Deadman's Poker, Swain gives us yet again another terrific thriller about Tony Valentine, gambling, cheaters, and more. In fact, Swain gives us his most ambitious effort yet with a plot line spanning two novels (Deadman's Poker and Deadman's Bluff). However, While the entire plot does not play out in this book, readers are not left on a cliffhanger and reading this book alone can be satisfying. This book takes place in Las Vegas as many of the books in this series, for obvious reasons do. The focus is on a nationally televised poker tournament and Valentine's role in snooping out cheaters. Valentine, if you skipped ahead to this book without reading the first five in the series, is a retired Atlantic City detective, who now runs a business called Grift Sense, so called because Valentine has an uncanny knack for spotting scams and cons so much so that just about every casino in the world sends him surveillance tapes to get his take on things. Interspersed with Valentine's investigation here are the antics of his son Gerry who is sort of a junior partner but who can't stay out of trouble as well as the comic wide-eyed betting of an old poker champion determined to clean up on outrageous bets to fleece suckers on such things as a foot race with a racehorse. Also, mixing it in with these episodes is Valentine's romance with a crack news reporter given a last chance to break a good story. It's a fine thriller with plenty of fights, shootings, doublecrosses, and action. Juxtaposing the cops and robbers effort to get the bad guys with the other episodes gives the story a fine balance. As with all the books in this series, this is a terrific fun book to read and highly recommended. The usual detective literary devices are here and more. Swain emphasizes the psychological aspects of a father son detective team while hunting cheaters and worse in Poker Tournament obsessed Las Vegas. The plot is not credible but the narrative uses the plot to teach us about different kinds of cheating techniques used in a many different gambling settings. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesTony Valentine (6) Awards
Fiction.
Mystery.
HTML: Tony Valentine is an expert at spotting cheats. He's tossed them out of gambling casinos from Atlantic City to Monaco. But though Tony has never met a scam he couldn't crack, his son and partner, Gerry, has just walked into one with a body count. What started as a conman's deathbed confession turns into a deadly Las Vegas grudge match during the world's biggest poker tournament. While Gerry tangles with the Vegas mob, Tony enlists the aid of an aging grifter to save the tournament, and stop a blind player who's out to heist it. .No library descriptions found. |
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