Synopsis/blurb…
When Ania Kozak hits Vegas, she's only looking for a
place to relax and lay low with her stolen cash and diamonds. But Sin City has
other plans for "Annie." Cord Needham is a poker circuit champion
with an eye for the ladies and a dark secret in his past. Casey Brunnell is a
former baseball player fighting the cards and running up debts to a local
mobster. When Annie decides to play a dangerous game with both of them, the
stakes go through the roof. Everyone scrambles to beat the odds and get out of
town with the money…and their lives.
Another Zafiro-Wilsky series collaboration that I enjoyed, though
maybe a smidgeon less than the last one. Queen of Diamonds is the second proper
novel in a series of three. Post series, they wrote a novella prequel, which I’ve
also read. So, it’s my third go of four, with the finale to look forward to.
Ania Kozak is fleeing Chicago and has a choice. This way to
Vegas, that way not to Vegas. She plumps for sin city naturally and a two-day
stopover. Not her wisest move.
Professional poker, wannabee gamblers and high rollers, and
a willy measuring competition between two dudes both seduced and stricken by
the allure of our femme fatale. High stakes poker, diamonds, a cop girlfriend
with attitude, confidence, luck, mobsters, loan sharks, debt, frighteners,
threats, missing pinkies, heavies, our character’s history and the resurfacing
of buried skeletons.
I enjoyed the combative nature of the book, between Cord and
Casey. Both trying to best each other for big bucks, both thinking they are the
light of Ania’s life. They both want to win the game and cement their future
with the girl.
I think I was slightly unconvinced by the professional’s
vulnerability to the undoubted charms of our hottie. I perhaps expected him to
be a bit shrewder, a bit sharper in reading her. I guess I didn’t expect him to
be played so easy. Similarly, Ania was perhaps a little bit reckless when arriving
in town, which I couldn’t quite buy. When she arrived at a hotel she was trying
to avoid the surveillance cameras initially, but before too long she had every
head in the place turned which kind of went against a sensible low radar approach.
That said when a girl wants to let her hair down, why shouldn’t she go wild.
The book was exciting though. There’s a thrill attached to
having so much riding on the turn of a card – dreams fulfilled or dashed. I liked
the bluffing, the attritional nature of the game, the signalling, the reading,
the throwaway chat, the diminishing stack of chips, the increasing value of the
pot and the subsequent ramping up of the tension.
3.5 from 5
Harbinger (prequel) and Blood on Blood have been enjoyed
before.
Read – (listened to) July, 2022
Published – 2013
Page count – 242 (6 hrs 46 mins)
Source – Audible purchase
Format - Audible
You've hit on one of my pet peeves, Col. I much prefer characters to behave really authentically (in this case, not falling so easily for the lady's charms). Still, the Vegas setting sounds great, and the premise makes sense, too. It sounds like a solidly-paced story, and that adds to this sort of tale.
ReplyDeleteMargot, maybe on another day I would have been less bothered by it, but I attributed a few more smarts to the character than he actually displayed. Similarly Ania went from low profile to high profile, which kind of seemed a bit off. Those niggles aside, I really liked the book.
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