Sucker Bet (Tony Valentine Series #3)

not easy to accomplish

It is hard to believe how unremitingly bad this book is. The author gets it all wrong from the start with cartoonish characters, a thin plot and one silly situation after another. Every minor detail is wrong from the college basketball game having four quarters to the incorrect discussion of blackjack - hard to believe with the ease of researching over the webt. This thrown together book must not have had an editor. The injected quirkiness always rings falsely and makes it clear the author is attempting to rip-off Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiiasen to pick up their fans. A suggest Mr Swain try writing with his own voice as that could not possibly be worse than what he did here.

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sure bet

On the Micanopy Indian Reservation in the Florida Everglades, Nigel Moon, a former drummer for an English rock band, won eighty-four hands of blackjack in a row. The dealer, Jack Lightfoot, did it on purpose at the instructions of his partner Rico Blanco who intends to run a scam using Moon¿s money. The chief of the tribe Running Bear is watching the security tapes but can¿t see how this scam went down so in desperation he calls in a consultant. Tony Valentine, founder and president of Grift Sense, finds the cheaters who try to rip off the casinos. He has a lot of experience doing that because he used to work as a police officer in Atlantic City when gambling was first legalized there. When he arrives on the reservation he figures out how the scam was run but a quick job soon gets very complicated as he becomes involved in tribunal justice and stopping Rico¿s scam. Along the way, he wrestles alligators, gets shot at and is almost killed by an out-of-control Rico, owing his life to a super intelligent monkey. If this book sounds a bit crazy, that is because it is a typical James Swain gritty yet humorous wild tale that also educates the readers in the ways a con artist can rip off a casino. The protagonist is a sixty-something year old honorable man who always stays true to his principles and values even if it makes him seem rigid to all the lesser mortals. SUCKER BET is a sure bet. Harriet Klausner

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