TITLE: Jackpot (Tony Valentine #8)
AUTHOR: James Swain
GENRE: Fiction, Crime
PUBLISHED: October 6th 2010
PAGE COUNT: 305 Pages
RATING: ★★★☆☆
PURCHASE LINKS: Barnes & Noble, Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Here
Review: Ex-cop Tony Valentine has a score to settle. Decades before, his brother-in-law was gunned down by a gang of ruthless con men, each of whom Valentine has sworn to track down. Now, only one is left, the cold-blooded Bronco Marchese.
Valentine goes to Nevada to bring Bronco to justice, while also helping the police figure out how someone is stealing hundreds of slot machine jackpots without ever touching the machines. It's a case that only Valentine with his amazing 'grift sense' can solve. Along the way, he will put his own life in peril, and risk everything that he holds dear, to bring his life-long enemy to justice.
For those who don't know Tony Valentine, he runs a business called Grift Sense, that detects and reveals casino cheaters, i.e. grifters. Swain has an intimate knowledge of this dark art, as he is a skilled sleight-of-hand magician who specializes in gambling and cheating techniques, and uses that knowledge and the psychology of gambling very well in weaving the plot in the series. I liked finding out that no matter how secure or untamperable a piece of electronic equipment is supposed to be there is someone out there that will try and hack it and sometimes they succeed.
Swain doesn’t waste time describing non-essentials like the décor of a room, or the landscape or exact routes that the characters travel. He gets to the point quickly and his characters are definitely not verbose. Valentine teams up with his son Gerry, who used to be a criminal himself, to bring Bronco to justice, as well as helping the police in uncovering a scam in which hundreds of slot machines are robbed of their jackpots.
Although Valentine comes over as a hard man, Swain very cleverly shows him as a sensitive father and someone who values frienship to the point where he would put himself in danger to protect his loved ones.
The characters are very believable, especially in dangerous and violent situations. No imaginary super-heroes here! I found this to be very enjoyable, fast paced and an easy read. Swain has just gained another fan and I will catch up to his other books in the near future.
