Introducing Tony Valentine
Grift Sense by James Swain
Everybody cheated, at least everybody Tony Valentine had ever known. They cheated on their income taxes, on their spouses, on the phone and cable company, and if they had balls, in a Friday-night poker game or on the golf course. Everybody did it at least once; it was human nature, and a forgivable sin. But those who developed a taste for it, they were the problem.
Paragraph one, Chapter one and we're off! Author James Swain wastes few words while introducing us to Tony Valentine, at first take a surprising choice for a mystery series hero. Valentine is no Lucas Davenport or James Patterson's Alex Cross. At series debut, he's already a 62-year-old retiree living in Florida, a recent widower subsisting on casseroles donated by his zany next-door-neighbor Mabel.
If Valentine is substantially more than he appears at first glance, so is Swain. Prior to Grift Sense, his first book, Swain's claim to fame was being one of the foremost card handlers in the world. One wouldn't think that a middle-aged magician might produce a first novel that can be compared to the works of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, but one would be wrong. Valentine and Swain produce surprise after surprise in this quirky, plot twisting page-turner.
And God said to Moses, "Moses, come forth." And Moses came fifth, And it cost God Two hundred and fifty bucks.
Something stinks at the Acropolis Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Frank Fontaine, a divorced computer salesman from Poughkeepsie, has cleaned up the black jack table three nights in a row. The dealer, Nola Briggs, can't shake the feeling she knows him from somewhere, and the club owner, Nick Nicocropolis, knows better than to think this guy has just gotten lucky. The club has lost 50 grand, and he wants it back. More than that, he wants to know what exactly is going on here?
The one guy in the world with all of the answers on gambling cons is Tony Valentine. An ex-cop from Atlantic City, NJ, he runs a one man consulting business called Grift Sense, named after the highest compliment one grifter can pay to another - knowing not just how to do the moves, but when to do them. Nicocropolis and his pals lure Tony to Las Vegas, and straight into a story where nothing is what it seems and the dead come back to life.
Surprise!
Grift Sense took me by surprise. I found the book last night in a stack of 20 odd paperbacks my husband had read recently. The New York Times Book Review rave front cover caught my eye, I picked it up, and didn't put the book down until all 388 pages were read. Now, I'm hooked on Swain and half in love with Tony Valentine.
This book is fun. The characters are a hoot, and mostly believable in a "Do you believe this guy?" kind of way. While Swain is not a Great Writer of Our Day, his writing is clean and crisp and serves to advance, er, propel the plot as it curly Qs its way toward finish.
The most exciting part, for me, is that I've discovered Valentine nearly as he was born (first paperback printing was May 2002). It won't be long before Tony Valentine joins Kinsey Malone, Lucas Davenport, Alex Cross, Kay Scarpetti and the like as "must read" heroes/anti-heroes -- and you heard it from me first.
This book is perfect for.....
Fans of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen simply must give Swain a read. I won't promise that he can stand toe-to-toe with the greats, but he builds his characters and spins his tale as a worthy student, at the least.
Folks who enjoy mystery series (with a foibled yet astute hero returning in a new adventure every year or so) will want to plug into this series. Swain took care to build characters that we will be happy to see on reprise.
The book can reach beyond the standard mystery/crime book fans as well. This isn't a book about murder or even law, it's casino cons, slight-of-hand, beating the odds. The guy who lives to watch Casino Diaries on A & E is going to get a charge out of Grift Sense. I'd lay odds on it.
