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When it comes to creating unforgettable criminal characters, nobody does it better than Emmy Award winner Stephen J. Cannell, the force behind such acclaimed TV hits as "The Rockford Files," "The Commish," "Wiseguy," and "The A-Team." Now come Cannell's most engaging characters yet—a spirited assortment of clever con artists.
King Con vs. The Don
Raised in a world of flimflams, come-ons and con-jobs, Beano Bates has done so well he's earned a spot on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. But his lucky streak vanishes after a card game in which he scams a cool eighty grand from a notorious Mafia don—who retaliates by having Beano nearly beaten to death.
For the first time in his legendary career, Beano wants more than a big score—he wants justice. Aided by a beautiful, no-nonsense female prosecutor and a legion of crafty cousins, all accomplished grifters, Beano, the king of the cons, puts together the ultimate swindle—a well-planned sting of strategy, skill and deception. The target is America's most feared mob kingpin and his psychopathic brother. And in this game, winner takes all!
When charming card cheat and confidence man Beano X. Bates takes too much money out of the pocket of Armani-draped New Jersey mafia boss Joseph Rina, Rina nearly beats him to death with a golf club. Rather than testify against Rina in an upcoming trial, Bates leaves the hospital and disappears, leaving feisty, terminally beautiful state prosecutor Victoria Hart without much of a case. Then Carol Sesnick, a protected witness in the Rina trial, is found murdered, along with her two state-police bodyguards, at the bottom of an elevator shaft in a Trenton apartment building. Hiding out as a used-car salesman in Florida, Beano, who's also on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, feels bad seeing his face flashed on television. He wants to quit being a con man and live easy with his cute terrier Roger-the-Dodger, but, having descended from a family of grifters, Bates can't quite ignore the calling of his blood. The murder of Sesnick, who's descended from a family of gypsies that has intermarried with the Bates clan, gives him the excuse to use his nefarious skills to bring Rina to justice. He teams up with Hart and teaches her a thing or two about small-time scams and the joys of preying on the deservingly dishonest. The two fall in love and wind up sufficiently imperiled (having successfully duped Tommy "Two Times" Rina, Joe's homicidal brother) to justify a slam-bang, ultraviolent finish just before the wedding bells ring.
Cannell shows off his skill at Elmore Leonardstyle plot twists and slangy street dialogue, but his blend of cinematically detailed violence and pointless Hollywood fairy-tale scenes fails to convince.
However, in one of crime fiction's most successful second acts, Cannell's career as a bestselling novelist began over two decades after he left his prints on the television world.
His debut novel, a political thriller called The Plan, burst onto the crime fiction beat in 1995. Said the New York Times Book Review of his first literary outing: "The thrust of the novel is unassailable." Cannell's follow-up, Final Victim, was a serial killer tale in the popular Silence of the Lambs vein. "Relentless.... Mesmerizing... Stephen J. Cannell is a great entertainer. The man can write," said The Washington Post Book World of Cannell's sophomore smash. Feature film rights to his third outing, a rollicking mob tale entitled King Con, were sold to MGM for $1 million, with Cannell writing the screenplay for the film and John Travolta slated to star.
Two other stand-alone thrillers, Riding the Snake (1998) and The Devil's Workshop (1999), were also well received, both critically and commercially. But Cannell would truly hit paydirt with the introduction of Shane Scully, a renegade LAPD sergeant who would come to star in a string of bestsellers beginning with 2001's The Tin Collectors. Named for those Internal Affairs officers who "police the police" -- and take the badges of cops who don't play by the rules -- the new turn displayed Cannell's "knack for character and a bent for drama that will satisfy even the most jaded thrill lover," according to Publishers Weekly.
Cannell's most recent books -- The Viking Funeral (2001) and Hollywood Tough (2002) -- continue to find Scully getting into all manner of dicey situations. but Cannell will always be there to bail him out for another adventure.
He has never had writer's block, which Cannell says he thinks "is usually caused by the desire to be perfect. The idea that I would be perfect at anything was knocked out of me by third grade. I write to entertain myself."
On his approach to writing, Cannell tells us, "I always try to write something I have never written before. This is why I have created such diverse TV series, ranging from the cartoonish A-Team to dark, cerebral dramas like Wiseguy."
"Sometimes the cards run that way," Beano replied as he watched his urine mix with Joe's and flow into a drain full Or bar ice and black pepper.
"You call a lot of six-card optional," Joe said, refer ring to a dealer's choice game that Beano preferred be cause, after the fifth card was dealt, the players could exchange any one of their cards for a sixth card before betting commenced. Beano liked the game because it gave him more cards to scope with his money clip shiner.
"Yeah," Beano grinned, "that's game's been working pretty good for me."
"You ever hear about Soapy Smith?" Joe said softly.
"Don't think I have," Beano replied, dreading the story, which he correctly assumed would be some kind of ghastly warning.
"They called him Soapy because he marked cards with soap. Kept a little sliver between his index and middle fingers, used it to stripe the cards. Soapy did real good in Atlantic City when I was growing up . . . drove a big, black Cadillac. All us kids wanted to be like him . . . lotsa women, great clothes. Always wore the ltalian or French designers. Everything was great till Saturday, June eighteenth, 1978.... That was the day we all changed our minds about being like Soapy."
"Really?" Beano said, his smile passed on his face, his puckering dick hanging forgotten in his hand. He put it away, zipped up, and moved to the washbasin, wishing he didn't have to hear the end of the tale.
In a minute, Joe Dancer's reflection joined his in the mirror. "Yeah. Poor Soapy got caught jammin' some players at the Purple Tiger, which was a little card club downon the wharf, by the pier. Those guys he was cheatin' were serious players, and they were real mad 'cause they trusted Soapy, so they held him down and jointed the poor guy while he was still alive."
"I beg your pardon?" Beano said.
"One guy, I think he'd been a medic in 'Nam, amputated Soapy a section at a time, while the others held him down. They had a plumber clamping off veins and arteries so he wouldn't bleed out. Kept him alive for about fifteen or twenty minutes. By the time they took off his left arm, poor Soapy's heart stopped."
Somebody flushed a toilet in the stall behind them.
"That's a damn good reason not to cheat," Beano managed, his insides now frozen like his smile.
"I always thought so," Joe said. And without any expression crossing his gorgeous aquiline face, he walked away from the sink.
The story made its point. Beano figured eighty-six grand was plenty. He decided to just hold even, maybe give some of it back, until the game time limit.
The game was called at exactly midnight, and Beano cashed in seventy-eight thousand in chips. Joe Rina left without saying another word. Beano stayed in the bar talking the losers down for about an hour, drinking and telling everybody it had been the best card night of his life.
At a few minutes past one, Beano walked out of the almost deserted country club and headed to his rental car.
What happened to Beano in the parking lot wasn't as bad as what had happened to Soapy Smith in Atlantic City, but it certainly made the same point.
He had just arrived at his car and was putting his briefcase into the trunk when he was staggered by a massive blow from behind. It hit him with such devastating force at the back of his skull that Beano instantly dropped to his knees, splitting open his forehead on the back bumper. He spun awkwardly around in time to see a nine-iron flying out of the darkness, right into his face. It was a chip shot from hell that broke all his front teeth and shattered his jaw, skewing it terribly. Beano fell to the pavement, then grunted in horrible, unendurable pain as four more horrendous blows from the golf club broke the third, fifth, and seventh ribs along his spinal column, also shattering his clavicle and sinus cavity.
Beano was barely conscious when Joe Rina stuck his handsome face down so close that Beano could smell his breath and mint aftershave.
"You look pretty bad, Mr. Lemay," the mobster said. "You might be able to pull this stuff on that buncha buffaloes in there, but you should know better than to try and cheat Joseph Rina."
Beano couldn't talk. His jaw was locked by bone chips and a break that knocked it badly out of alignment.
"Now I'm gonna take my money back. But let me assure you this has been very helpful," Joe Dancer said with exaggerated politeness. "I've been having trouble with my short game. I think I wasn't keeping my head down and following through like my guy keeps telling me. Thanks for the practice." Joe stood up; then Beano felt pure agony as two more blows rained down onto his body for good measure. He started to cough up blood. Beano knew he was badly wounded, but more important, in that instant he felt something die inside him. It was as if the most critical piece of Beano Bates, his charming confidence had left him like smoke out of an open window. It was his confidence and ego that allowed him to be the best. As he lost consciousness, he somehow knew that if he survived he would never be the same again.
He woke up in New Jersey, at the Mercer County Hospital. He was in ICU. The nurses told him he'd had ten hours of surgery, that three teams of orthopedists and neurosurgeons had spent the night putting his busted face and body back in place. His jaw was wired shut. There was a large pair of wire clippers next to his bed. When he was conscious enough to understand, the trauma nurse told him that if he felt like vomiting from the surgical anesthesia or antibiotics, he should get the clippers and cut his wired jaw open, so that he wouldn't vomit back into his trachea and lungs and choke to death. It was sobering advice. He lay in agony for weeks, feeling every inch of his body throb. Even the impressive list of meds he was taking couldn't completely mask the pain.
The New Jersey State Police transcribed his statement from his hospital room. He talked to them through his wired mouth, forming the words like an amateur ventriloquist. Beano gave his statement under his assumed name, Frank Lemay, because there were three Federal warrants out on him for criminal fraud and various other sophisticated con games. He was also currently on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. It was better if the authorities thought it was Frank Lemay who had been beaten up by Joe Rina. He also didn't tell them that he had no intention of ever testifying against the handsome mob boss.
His old friend and fellow card sharper "Three Finger" Freddy Feinberg came to visit him in the hospital. The gray-haired card shark looked down in shock at Beano, who was still swollen and discolored like rotting fruit. "Jeez, man, you look like a fucking typhoid victim," he said. It had been Freddy who arranged for Beano to get in the game. "I told ya, Beano, I told ya, 'Be careful of that guy Joe Rina.' " And then Three Finger Freddy told him about a rumor that was buzzing around in the street. The word was that Joe Dancer was still pissed and had put out a contract on Frank Lemay, because he had not shown the grace and good sense to die in the country club parking lot like he was supposed to. Three Finger Freddy also told him about how the Rina brothers had taken care of disposal of bodies in the old days. It was another story Beano could have done without hearing. The police told him that a New Jersey prosecutor named Victoria Hart was coming down to interview him prior to filing the assault-with-intent-to-commit-murder charges against Joseph Rina. Because Joe Rina was a popular tabloid star, the press was swarming to get a story. It was only a matter of time until Beano's alias would be penetrated, so he disconnected himself from the tangle of electrodes and I.V. bottles and limped out of the hospital. It was a move that saved his life, but he was now poised on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a landscape of revenge and violence that would change him forever.
Copyright ) 1998 by
Stephen J Cannell: It is great to be here!
Stephen J Cannell: I am aware of the fact that there are a lot of Web sites for "Silk Stalkings." I was sad to see them leave the show after five years; however, it was their choice to move on despite my intense efforts to renew their contracts. They were great stars and wonderful people, and I wish them nothing but the best. Often when an actor or actress has done a series for five years, they feel that there is very little more they can do with their characters. You must remember that although you see the show for an hour, they are working on it for 13 hours a day 8 months out of the year, and it was their choice to move on. I hope you can all get invested in Chris Potter and Janet Gunn, who are excellent performers doing their very best to carry on the great tradition.
Stephen J Cannell: I am currently finishing re-hanging the pilot for "Hawaii Five-O." This revisits the show with new actors and new characters. My hope is CBS will program it. I have written the screenplays for both my second novel as well as my third novel, KING CON, both slated to be motion pictures. The movie version of KING CON will star John Travolta.
Stephen J Cannell: I am not certain where any show will end up. Right now, I am just happy to be making the series, but who knows? Some good characters will never die.
Stephen J Cannell: I love Michael Connelly, Nelson De Mille, Lawrence Saunders, Ed McBain, Joe Wambaugh, and a host of others. Mostly I read authors who write in the same genre that I write.
Stephen J Cannell: No.
Stephen J Cannell: Books are a more complete form of writing, where as an author you can go into a character's head. In TV, you must convey all the information through dialogue, which at times is a little unnatural. For pure writing fun, I prefer the novel form because it allows me so many more tools. However, doing film is a much more social environment and is also really fun because of all the people that come together to make your words a reality.
Stephen J Cannell: It happens in a variety of ways. Sometimes they are solely my ideas, as in "Wiseguy" or "The Greatest American Hero." Sometimes they are cocreated, such as "The A-Team" and "The Commish," and sometimes they are the direct result of a network trying to fill a particular void in the schedule -- "Riptide" and "The A-Team." They come from all directions.
Stephen J Cannell: It was actually called "Marker." I am not sure what happened, I wish I knew because in my opinion it should have never been canceled. It was getting a 3.5 rating and a 4 rating. Ratings that shows don't even get today. My suspicion is that there were political reasons within the network that resulted in its cancellation.
Stephen J Cannell: We made one movie last year, and I am certainly up for it if the network is interested.
Stephen J Cannell: The best television, in my opinion, is "NYPD Blue," "Law and Order," "The Larry Sanders Show," "Friends," as well as many others. As far as books, any of the books written by the previously mentioned authors.
Stephen J Cannell: It is up to CBS to decide when to show the pilot. It starred Russell Wong, Gary Busey, Elsey Flippen, and Stephen Flynn. Also some of the old "Five-O" cast, including Can Fong and several others.
Stephen J Cannell: Well they are making a movie with MGM, and John Travolta has been slated to star.
Stephen J Cannell: We have spoken to Mitzi, who might come back, having had her baby. Rob Estes is a regular on "Melrose Place" and will probably not come back. We will just have to wait and see.
Stephen J Cannell: The movie is currently in second draft of the screenplay. My hope is that the three remaining guys will play cameos. George Peppard, as you know, passed away a couple of years ago. The script, I believe, is excellent, written by a young writer named Richard Hatem.
Stephen J Cannell: The highest hopes I had were for "Ten Speed and Brown Shoe" with Jeff Goldblum. Also "Profit" in 1997. Neither of these shows, in my opinion, got a long enough running to get a fair chance. They were both bull's-eyes. The show I thought had the least chance and became the biggest hit was "The A-Team," because it was so unusual that all the characters broke the molds of heroes. It was put against big hits, and lo and behold, "The A-Team" exploded, knocking both of these shows off the air. So what do I know?
Stephen J Cannell: Not at this point, although I think Ken is a great actor, so maybe something will happen in the future.
Stephen J Cannell: It can be either. There have been times when I worked with other writers and we had fun. There were also times when I was alone, banging my head against the wall trying to figure how to make certain that the story you are telling is both evolving and rich in character, since no writing is taking place, just outlining. It doesn't tend to be as much fun. So getting together with other writers takes the stink off the process. When you write dialogue, the characters come alive in your head and on the page. Most writers prefer to do that process alone.
Stephen J Cannell: I only wrote one episode of "Columbo" and therefore don't have much to say whether it comes back or not. I know Peter Falk has been making "Columbo" for the past couple of years. My understanding is that they will make them. However, we have been making "Rockford" movies. We just finished the eighth two-hour movie for CBS, but I am not positive when it will be on the air.
Stephen J Cannell: Yes, I enjoy acting, I hope maybe as my responsibilities as an executive decrease with the sale my studio, I will have more time for it. It is fun!
Stephen J Cannell: I am delighted with Travolta as Beano, and no other actors have been slated. I would like to see someone like Andy Garcia as Dancer. But this will be a decision made by a lot of other people, as well as me.
Stephen J Cannell: It has been great pleasure talking to you. I look forward to my next chat. Until then, do a struggling writer a favor and buy my book!
JessLucy
Posted June 23, 2011
Very informative and entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the world of con-men and the scams they run. This is a suspensful and fluid story that keeps the reader glued to the pages. I've liked everything I've read so far by this author.
You may also like: The Jack Reacher series by Lee Child.
Anonymous
Posted April 7, 2006
King Con by Stephen J. Cannell book review. This book is a thriller with plenty of suspense and action. Beano X. Bates is the main character. He is developed primarily through dialogue. Beano is intelligent and is able to remain calm while performing his cons. He creates elaborate plans to get money, and then uses that money to invest in other cons. Beano is able to pull of these cons because he is charismatic, sly and gets people to go along with what he says. Victoria Hart is a beautiful successful prosecutor, she plays a hard to get, and is a stubborn woman who assists Beano with his cons. She is shy and hesitant to cooperate with him at first because he is a criminal, but she soon learns it is the only way to get back at Joe Rina. Joe Rina is the stereotypical mobster, he is laid back and watches over everyone and all of his ¿businesses¿. When things start to go wrong he loses his cool and becomes anxious and begins to make mistakes. The story opens with Beano Bates conning Joe Rina, a mafia don, for eighty thousand dollars. In return Beano gets some teeth knocked out, and plenty of bruises. Joe Rina kills one of Beano¿s friends. That is how Vicky and Beano meet. They both want to get revenge on Joe Rina, who always finds a way to evade the law. Vicky is the type that has never done anything wrong, but she soon learns this is the only way to get back at Rina. This seems to be one of the themes of the story, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. When Vicky learns what Beano wants her to do, she goes a little crazy. As the story progresses, the cons get more elaborate and she opens up to him more. They begin to get closer and trust each other more. The author likes to tell the readers what the characters plan to do, then creates suspense while the reader watches on, wondering if they will work. It is written in 3rd person and also 1st person that changes between characters. This book is and easy read and is very entertaining, hard to put down after only a few pages. It has plenty of action but holds only a little meaning in it. If you¿re looking for a book that will keep your attention, this is definitely one.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 27, 2005
I really enjoyed this book from the first page to the last. The story was great and I did not want to put the book down.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 24, 2002
This book is funny, exiting, and thrilling. But the best thing about this book is the contrast of charecters you have a mob boss an atorney and a family of con artists. The plot is complex but naver boring, once ytu pick it up you never want to put it down! Some books you read to put you to sleep but this will keep you up all night long!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted February 1, 2001
Stephen Cannell has written a very fast paced book that keeps your interest from page to page until the end.Some of the cons that are pulled seem a little on the edge, but the writing keeps it flowing smoothly, making it hard to put the book down. I definitely recommend this book and certainly look forward to reading more of his books!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 29, 1999
What a fun and interesting read!!! You will find this work humorous and very provoking! Cannell shows great style as he tells this tale of running 'The Big Store' against a Crime Family in NJ. Give us more just like this!! I spent 4 - 5 hrs with a huge grin - as I allowed myself to be part of the great scams that fill this book!! Enjoy!!!!!!!!!
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Overview
When it comes to creating unforgettable criminal characters, nobody does it better than Emmy Award winner Stephen J. Cannell, the force behind such acclaimed TV hits as "The Rockford Files," "The Commish," "Wiseguy," and "The A-Team." Now come Cannell's most engaging characters yet—a spirited assortment of clever con artists.
King Con vs. The Don
Raised in a world of flimflams, come-ons and con-jobs, Beano Bates has done so well he's earned...