This book jumped out at me from the library shelf, and because it sounded more interesting than some, I thought I’d give it a try.

I’ve never seen this subject matter in a novel — compulsive gambling — which doesn’t mean there aren’t some books that deal with it. Hudson does such a good job of describing it, that if you have trouble with this, as someone I know does, you shouldn’t read it.

The only thing Skye McNally doesn’t play are the slots:

I play things where a little skill and intuition are involved. Not slots…I’ll take a bet on whether or not there’s a gas station in the next twenty miles. Whether or not it rains tomorrow. Whether or not I can somehow pull an inside straight. I like blackjack. I like poker. p 126

With a father who’s a bookie, an ex-husband who helps her father run his business in New York, growing up without her mother, Skye is a flawed character with a heart of gold and a happy ending. She is living in Las Vegas, attending Gambling Anonymous meetings, hoping to get her coin that represents going 30 days without gambling. Her sponsor is a tough talking, also-heart-of-gold, retired football player.

When one of Skye’s female acquaintances is found murdered for lack of ability to pay back her gambling debts, a woman who had turned to turning tricks, Skye finds herself face to face with the worst case scenario of her own life. She escapes to the Nevada desert to get away.

…I glimpsed the absolute fright wig that was my hair. Only bald men should drive convertibles. Sure, it looks all sexy driving with your hair whipping around your face, but really…I looked like I’d stuck my finger in an electrical socket. My jet-black curls made Medusa’s look well-coifed…p 116

There, in a chance encounter, she meets another football player who has escaped from his own situation just before Superbowl. He had learned through his own sleuthing that he’d been poisoned with digitalis so that the upcoming game would be thrown and the one(s) responsible for poisoning him would have a chance to recoup his/their own debts.

You can imagine what happens when the press gets wind of their romance.

Throw in other assorted characters, including a fixer who fixes the things that professional athletes get into, a bit of a gay love story, and the inside scoop on gambling, and you have a book that at least holds your interest. Hudson does a good job making it all seem believable.

There’s a lot of humor in this book, a good deal of poignancy, characters that genuinely care for each other. And Skye is a wise-cracking intelligent woman who stands her ground against impossible odds and comes out on top.

4 star. One thing I do wish, though, is that there was less drinking.

Karin

Hudson has written another book which I will attempt to find and see if it is as good as this one.

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