{"id":12599,"date":"2019-07-12T19:29:34","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T23:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12599"},"modified":"2019-07-12T19:29:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T23:29:34","slug":"grift-sense-by-james-swain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=12599","title":{"rendered":"‘Grift Sense,’ by James Swain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When it came to bad relationships, he had no equal, and Valentine couldn\u2019t help but like him, even though he liked practically nothing about him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

James Swain writes novels <\/strong>about cheating in the gambling world, based on the expertise of a magician. I took a chance on Grift Sense<\/a><\/em>, the first book in his Tony Valentine series, because I thought it might be interesting to peek into that world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony Valentine is a former Atlantic City cop who knows just about\neverything there is to know about gambling cheats. He\u2019s retired in Florida now,\nbut casino owners still send him surveillance tapes, so he can study them and\nidentify some particularly clever scam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He gets a request from Nick Nicocropolis, who owns the\nAcropolis casino in Las Vegas, once a premiere venue, now aging and on its last\nlegs. A guy has come in twice and won big. Too big for the odds. And the video offers\nno explanation for his \u201cluck.\u201d Tony doesn\u2019t care for Nick much, but he accepts\nhis offer to fly out to Sin City for two reasons \u2013 one is the challenge. The\nother is to avoid his estranged son Gerry, whom he wants to avoid just now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tony will learn, after a lot of looking, that Nick has a bigger problem than just a single card shark. Something major is being planned, a crime that will shake Vegas and destroy Nick \u2013 unless Tony can stop it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a lot to like in Grift Sense<\/em>. Author Swain plots with the instincts of a sleight-of-hand artist, equipped with big surprises up his sleeve. He\u2019s also a good writer, capable of turning out a pretty good sentence. His characters are interesting and layered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I won\u2019t be reading any more. I find that I just don\u2019t like the world of gambling. It\u2019s full of predators, and cynicism is the only sensible attitude. The nicest, most sympathetic people are either victims or con artists. I feel no desire to revisit that world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might have a different response. If so, this is a pretty\ngood book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it came to bad relationships, he had no equal, and Valentine couldn\u2019t help but like him, even though he liked practically nothing about him. James Swain writes novels about cheating in the gambling world, based on the expertise of a magician. I took a chance on Grift Sense, the first book in his Tony … Continue reading ‘Grift Sense,’ by James Swain<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[1122,1387,3174],"class_list":["post-12599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-grift-sense","tag-james-swain","tag-tony-valentine"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}