Deadman's Bluff: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: James Swain
Publisher: Fawcett
Category: Book
List Price: $6.99
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Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 104791
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4 x 1.3
ISBN: 0345475518
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780345475510
ASIN: 0345475518
Publication Date: May 30, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Some wear on book from reading, some spine creases, wear on binding and pages, we guarantee all purchases and ship all items via USPS mail.
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Product Description
“In this series about gambling, the main character is a big winner.”
–Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“Bask in Swain’s Las Vegas without having to set foot in the place and risk being skinned alive.”
–The Washington Post Book World
A blind poker player named Skip DeMarco is scamming the world’s largest poker tournament in Las Vegas, and cheating-expert Tony Valentine and his son, Gerry, have been hired to find out how. DeMarco is tied to some dangerously desperate characters who will go to extremes–even cold-blooded murder–to ensure that the obnoxious DeMarco wins big.
While Gerry flies to Atlantic City to suss out DeMarco’s secret, Valentine stays in Vegas and teams up with an aging grifter named Rufus Steele, who has his own score to settle with DeMarco. On opposite sides of a deadly game, father and son work their way through a colorful landscape of conmen and hitmen. Together, they will have to prove there’s more to any game of chance than meets the eye.
Featuring insider tips for catching poker cheats, as well as a glossary of card hustler terms!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Second part of two-parter February 1, 2008
lb136 (New York, NY USA)
Another in the author's series of novels featuring Tony Valentine, who consults with casinos and law-enforcement about gambling scams and scammers.
In this tale, the second of two parts ("Deadman's Poker" being the first), Valentine remains in Las Vegas to discover how a blind poker player is scamming a poker tournament, which is being televised nationally by an ESPN-like cable sports network. Meanwhile his son Gerry goes to Atlantic City, where the scam originated, to find out what he can learn there.
Two of the characters from "Poker" reappear--Gloria, a female reporter for the network, who Valentine develops a relationship with, and a 72-year-old grifter named Rufus, who among other "wagers" bets that he can win a pingpong match against a champion.
There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor, and the side-stories about other scams are as always a treat. I didn't mind at all that it took the author 700 pages, total, to finish the story.
More flaws August 20, 2007
Judith M. Colbert (Crofton, MD USA)
As a non-player, I didn't catch the playing mistakes, but there are other flaws -- Swain was trying to write too much to quickly, I think.
Note, on page 81, he has the doctor attending to Detective Davis saying, "The human body has a hundred quarts of blood. Eddie lost a tiny fraction of that. He'll be fine. Trust me."
I think it's more like 5.5 quarts.
Also, I think he changed the color of Gloria's eyes between "Deadman's Poker" and "Deadman's Bluff."
Then, there are typos not caught, etc. These are things I didn't notice in his earlier books. That doesn't mean they aren't there; just that I didn't catch them.
Having said that, I'm still looking forward to his next book, "Jackpot."
The rise of Gerry August 6, 2007
G. Ware Cornell Jr. (Weston FL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tony Valentine is getting a bit long in the tooth. He is over sixty now and can't bounce back from a beating with quite the speed of a younger guy.
So if you are James Swain and you understand that your cerebral hero must also be a man of action, you have to bring on someone to help Tony. And so we have Tony's son Gerry. His rough edges are sandpapered to a new smoothness. His flaws are prologue, but his present is blemish-free. tony doesn't worry anymore if Gerry's former profession-bookmaking-will get him killed. He worries if the people who want to kill Tony will kill Gerry for being just like Tony.
And this is the major flaw in this edition. The grifters are there, where they belong on the casino floors, and the scammers and the politician dance their symbiotic mating call. But it is Gerry not Tony who emerges at the end.
Just maybe, Swain is right. Tony needs someone to take the beatings. Or just maybe some editor has becided this for Swain. Time will tell if this is a good move. I am keeping my money on Tony though.
 If you didn't see this sequel coming, Rufus wants you May 28, 2007
Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA)
Maybe it is a lack of focus. Deadman's Poker left us all awaiting the revelation. You could pretty much guess what it would be : although, the specific element and technology awaited revelation. This novel takes up where Poker left off: the multi-million dollar poker tournament in Las Vegas. Same characters, same con, a few more twists. Strangly enough, in this sequel it is son Gerry who solves this question and his actions in Atlantic City are more in line with those of his father in the previous "Grift" novels. The reasoning concerning hats and tailoring is a fine piece of logic. (By the way, the wearing of ball caps vs the original dress code in Atlantic City casinos is cleverly introduced in Tony's lifetime wardrobe of black jackets.) Meanwhile Tony is in Vegas at a poker tournament attempting to solve card cheating while accompanied by poker player and aging con-man Rufus Steele. Rufus reminds me of my father once telling me that if someone bets he can make a barstool stand on a bar and sing Dixie, "Don't take that bet!" And this is the problem, a good part of this novel is dedicated to Rufus making bets which he wins by strict construction of the language and the comic nature thereof. The half-million dollar bets stretch the belief in anyone taking such "sure thing" wagers. Meanwhile, Swain dedicates print space to explaining scamsters' cant: "Brush off," "mucker," "Who shot Joe," etc. When he does get back to Tony solving the main puzzle it all seems a bit anti-climactic. All in all I think these two poker tournament novels are the weaker works in the set, but after all there's the TV phenomenon, and I guess some fans of Texas Hold em enjoy the background.
 Excellent January 12, 2007
Professor TK (NY)
James Swain hit it right again with this two part novel. Filled with humor and insight into the dark side of wagering this is a book you won't want to miss.
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