James Swain. Loaded Dice. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004. 310 pp, $22.95 (hardcover)
When I started this site back in 2005, I posted many reviews as static pages. Now, instead of reformatting them all, I’m reposting them as posts. If you’re a longtime reader, enjoy the nostalgia, and if you’ve just found this site, it’s a chance to enjoy something new.
I’ve also made a few small graphics changes, so hitting the handy F5 key might make the site look better.
I’ve started with James Swain’s Loaded Dice, which was a fun book and the first fiction that I reviewed here. Enjoy. Click on through for the full review.
—————————————————
This is apparently the fourth in a series of Tony Valentine novels, though it’s the first I’ve read. Tony Valentine is a 63 year-old former Atlantic City detective who specialized in casino crimes, particularly cheating. Now retired, his wife has died, and he runs a consulting business called “Grift Sense,” through which he helps casinos catch cheats (and, no doubt, allows for a range of interesting settings for Tony Valentine novels).
Las Vegas is the setting for this novel, as Tony has flown out to check up on his ne’er do well son, whom he has enrolled in a card-counting school. He is unable to locate his son, but while in Las Vegas, Tony demonstrates the latest in blackjack cheating technology to a trio of big-time casino owners and gallantly saves a suicidal jumper, which turns out to be a major plot point. The jumper, a fiftys-ish “slot queen” who looks uncannily like Tony’s dead wife, is staying at the Acropolis, a run-down, gaudy Strip casino run by Tony’s “oldtime pal,” Nick. Meanwhile, Tony is linked to the gangland-style murder of a stripper, and her Metro boyfriend wants revenge.
The plot unfolds tautly, as Tony learns of a plot by neighboring casino owners to bankrupt Nick’s casino (their master plan is to replace it with a people-mover-they must be Bally’s Las Vegas execs). Tony learns that the linchpin of the plan to bankrupt Nick is Tony’s own personal Moriarty, a casino cheater named Frank Fontaine. Fontaine nurses a deep hatred for Tony, whom he blames for the death of his girlfriend, and now enjoys the protection of the FBI. Meanwhile, Tony’s son gets in too deep with a pair of card-counting Pakistani brothers. What began as a simple casino-cheating scheme frenetically escalates into a high-stakes search for the truth, with far-reaching implications.
It’s a good suspense novel: I read it in one sitting, by my apartment complex’s pool, and it definitely held my attention. There were some interesting details about cheating and casino scams, some of which were fairly accurate. Swain has obviously done his homework. Swain is an excellent suspense writer, and he has a good eye for Las Vegas and the casino world. I liked the brief descriptions of Sin, the upscale new casino, and those of the Acropolis, a run-down Strip veteran. It could have used with more fleshing out though–maybe some details of the Acropolis’s back of the house to really hammer home the point that it is an old casino.
A few things rang a bit false, though. Some of these give away elements of the story (but not the ending). If you want to read the book without knowing these elements, stop reading this review now, and read it again when you finish. If you can live with knowing a little about the story, read on.
Here are a few of my problems with Loaded Dice:
The title. I really dislike clichéd titles, and Loaded Dice is about as bad as it gets. I take that back-two previously Tony Valentine novels are Sucker Bet and Funny Money. I have a positive loathing for the term “funny money.” During my casino security/surveillance career, I had occasion to deal with counterfeit currency more than once. Each time some moron would stand around, point at the fake bills, and say, “That’s funny money!” like it was some kind of revelation from on high. Wrong, moron, we’re professionals, and it’s “counterfeit currency.”
Loaded dice aren’t even part of the plot. It’s the story of an attempt to bring down a casino, with an intersecting tale of terrorists. They show up on page 152 for about a minute, and aren’t seen again.
It would be funny if someone wrote a series of casino crime books with alphabetical title, like that one crime writer. I already have the “r” entry: R is for Rail-washer. If you don’t know what that means, you aren’t missing much.
The Atlantic City connection. Swain is a retired AC cop, and there’s not one reference to Tony’s Baltimore Grill. He never complains about not being able to get “real” Italian bread. He doesn’t talk “like a fish,” and he never says “youse.” What gives?
ACPD detective: casino cheat catcher? By law, Atlantic City casinos are not policed by Atlantic City; ACPD has no jurisdiction on the casino floor. The state police, working through the Division of Gaming Enforcement, investigate and arrest people for crimes there, with the assistance of casino surveillance. Atlantic City police are involved in crimes that take place off the casino floor, and street crime incidents like purse snatching, but I’ve never heard of an ACPD detective working a casino cheating case. So the entire premise of the series, that Valentine is a retired AC cop who specialized in casino cheats and scams, is dead wrong.
Eye in the sky. As a former surveillance operator and someone who has been trained by the state of Nevada in the art of casino cheat detection, there were more than a few inconsistencies that I noticed, but don’t make too much of a difference. The bit about the timing of the surveillance tape change is nearly, but not quite, correct-try that scam at your peril. Swain also makes reference to fourteen people working in surveillance at the same time, on a single shift, which is ridiculous, at least in the rooms I’ve been in. Also, a major plot element involves gaps in coverage in the hotel tower because “there’s so much to watch.” That’s what they make multiplex recorders for.
Also, in the middle of the book, an FBI Special Agent is killed in the line of duty in a casino parking garage and run over twice. Every garage that I’ve ever been in has continuous taping of all entrances and exits, as a matter of course; my guess is that it would be easy to spot a car with the body damage caused by hitting a large human being (twice). This isn’t considered, and there’s not even any mention of a manhunt for the agent’s killer. He’s like the guy with the red shirt in the old Star Trek who got unsentimentally killed when they first beamed down.
I would think a murdered agent working a homeland security case might garner a little attention, but I guess I’m wrong. Also, a pair of FBI Special Agents, in a crucial part of the book, readily give out the direct line of the Director. I somehow doubt that every FBI agent has memorized these digits. Personally, I couldn’t give you the direct line of my university’s president, or even my own dean, and I already know the first six numbers: (702.895.????). Yet these agents, stationed in Florida, would have memorized the extension of the FBI Director in Washington DC? It strains the bonds of credibility.
In short, Loaded Dice is riveting. If you like casinos and detective/crime/suspense novels, definitely read this book. It’s interesting to see how something as timeless as casino cheating can be tied into terrorism in a creative way. I’ll probably read the other Tony Valentine novels, and if I run into James Swain doing research on the next one, I’d be happy to give him whatever pointers I can, if he’s willing to accept unsolicited advice from a guy who’s sold a fraction of the books he has. As a matter of fact, I’ll ask him for some pointers, since he obviously knows what he’s doing. But at the very least, I think I would be a great dialect/local color consultant.
Originally reviewed in August 2004