Grift Sense
by James Swain
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Book Summary Information
Author: James SwainEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-04-01
ISBN: 0345463838
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Grift Sense
Book Review: A Mystery Filled With Schemes, Scams, Surprises & Suspense!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Grift Sense" is James Swain's debut novel, and features retired Atlantic City cop Tony Valentine. Sixty-two year-old Valentine, a recent widower, lives in Palm Harbor, Florida, and runs a one-man consulting business called "Grift Sense," a term which is one of the highest compliments one hustler can pay to another. It's an old gambling expression which means "that you not only know how to do the moves, you also know when to do them." He is one of the most refreshingly original characters to enter the world of sleuth fiction in a long time, and can feel "when a hustle is going down, even if he doesn't know exactly what it is." I feel compelled to mention here that this is one very sexy senior!
When Frank Fontaine, a computer salesman from Poughkeepsie, on vacation, with no police record, blatantly cleans up the black jack table three nights straight at the Acropolis Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, there's cause for considerable concern. His winning percentage, maintained over the course of several hours for three nights in a row, is impossibly high. The guy is slick, a real pro and definitely cheating, but no on can figure out how! Dealer Nola Briggs swears she has never met Fontaine before and was not signaling him. She has worked at the Acropolis for ten years, possesses a spotless record, was even employee of the week a few times, and the surveillance films seem to back her up. Club owner, Nick Nicocropolis knows something smells rotten, and it's a lot closer than in Denmark. So, he calls in the services of old pal, Tony Valentine, whose ability to sniff-out grifters saved Atlantic City casinos millions of dollars over the years. There's no gambling con he doesn't know about and he maintains a personal database of all con artists worthy of note, living and dead. Yet, this particular scam, from what he can see on tape, is a new one. And when Tony gets close to the truth, his life and the lives of his loved ones are threatened.
Swain's narrative is well written, fast paced and filled with suspense and humor. His inside take of the gambling industry, gaming, the view from the catwalk and other surveillance measures is fascinating. The characters are wonderfully quirky, like friend and neighbor Mabel Struck, who runs daily anonymous classifieds in the St. Petersburg Times, to the delight of area subscribers, and son Gerry with whom he has had a running battle for years. The kid's a bookie, and manipulated Dad into setting him up in the business.
James Swain, is supposedly one of the best card-handlers around, a gambling expert and a professional magician. So he knows his subject matter well. He has written a most entertaining mystery full of schemes, scams and surprises. You won't be able to put this one down.
JANA
Summary of Grift Sense
Amidst the neon and the big special ugly of Las Vegas, mild-mannered Frank Fontaine is beating the brains out of the Acropolis Casino. The house cops think the dealer, a blonde named Nola, is part of the con, but no one can prove a thing. For Tony Valentine, it?s the first new scam he?s seen in decades?and maybe the best. Three things Tony knows: The blonde is guilty, the grifter has lived a former life, and the biggest scam is the one that hasn?t happened yet.In a dream world of fake Greek statues, statuesque hostesses, and a casino owner whose sex life might just burn down his own house, Tony Valentine is plying his special trade. While some people have a sixth sense, Tony has a grift sense?and he needs it now to separate a grifter from a scam that?s worse than anyone?s wildest dreams. . . .
Penzler Pick, July 2001: The first four pages of this casino-themed debut are smashing--literally. Then James Swain, himself a gambling expert and professional magician, gets to the real story, and at that point, the plot starts churning out more twists than a corkscrew factory on overtime. Soon the characters are so enmeshed in their own self-serving lies, scams, and schemes that the only thing for a reader to do is just take a deep breath and let the steady barrage of surprises wash over him.
There's no point in saying "take a deep breath and enjoy the scenery," because in Swain's Las Vegas, what one gazes upon is most likely to be a casino's gambling floor as viewed from security monitors. "Watching surveillance videos," he explains, "is a unique experience. The cameras filtered twice as much light as the human eye, and as a result hairpieces looked like rugs, cheap suits took on zebra stripes, and women wearing red dresses became naked. It was like entering the Twilight Zone."
All too familiar with this eerie, totally paranoid, 24/7 universe is one-time Atlantic City cop Tony Valentine, who now runs a one-man consulting business he calls Grift Sense. To say of someone that he has that particular form of larcenous intuition, the author tells us, is "the highest compliment" one hustler can pay another. Grift sense means "that you not only knew how to do the moves, you also knew when to do them."
And even if Valentine is 62 and settled in Florida, away from the action, he's never lost his ability to "feel when a hustle's going down, even if (he doesn't) know exactly what it is." That's why the Acropolis Resort & Casino is determined to lure him West to check out what looks like funny business going on between blond blackjack dealer Nola Briggs and a player named Frank Fontaine, who happens to be winning a little too steadily. Swain's easy expertise with the world of gaming and gamblers makes Grift Sense into a fascinating guidebook, as well as a vivid debut in a series that so far has a flavor all its own. --Otto Penzler
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