Scan barcode
dantastic's review
2.0
The Syndicate wanted to shut Joe Martin and his casino, Rainbow's End, down and brought in the best gambler in the world to put him out of business. Can Joe Martin keep his casino? And does the girl who's stolen his heart have anything to do with the people who want his money?
Yeah, there are some awesome books in the Hard Case Crime series and some that are only okay. This is one of the okay ones.
I like the idea of an independent casino owner going up against the mob to keep his business. It sounds good, right? Too bad it was kinda boring. I don't find the idea of a guy playing craps with Syndicate money trying to break a casino very exciting. Sunny Guido (Guido? Really?) would have made an interesting love interest for Joe if she wasn't such a bland doormat. The subplot with Dee and Malcolm didn't really do anything for me. Other than Joe Martin, the only character I cared about was Sprig, security at the Rainbow's End. By the end, I just didn't care anymore.
It wasn't a horrible book. It was fairly well written. I just don't see the attraction of Las Vegas, I guess.
Yeah, there are some awesome books in the Hard Case Crime series and some that are only okay. This is one of the okay ones.
I like the idea of an independent casino owner going up against the mob to keep his business. It sounds good, right? Too bad it was kinda boring. I don't find the idea of a guy playing craps with Syndicate money trying to break a casino very exciting. Sunny Guido (Guido? Really?) would have made an interesting love interest for Joe if she wasn't such a bland doormat. The subplot with Dee and Malcolm didn't really do anything for me. Other than Joe Martin, the only character I cared about was Sprig, security at the Rainbow's End. By the end, I just didn't care anymore.
It wasn't a horrible book. It was fairly well written. I just don't see the attraction of Las Vegas, I guess.
psteve's review
3.0
Joe Martin owns the biggest independent casino in 1958 Las Vegas. And the syndicate, aka the mob, wants him out, so they hire a master gambler to ruin Martin, in a long master craps game. The author wrote some fine movies, as it says on the back, and I Wake Up Screaming. All good stuff.
This book was enjoyable, with some good twists and characters. The background on casino gambling in the 50s was good, but craps isn't that interesting a game to me, never has been, and this book doesn't really make it more so. I also felt that a couple times the author sort of cheated by not telling you some stuff about some characters.
That said, it's still an engaging, fast read, and the portrait of Vegas in the 50s, written at the time, is compelling.
This book was enjoyable, with some good twists and characters. The background on casino gambling in the 50s was good, but craps isn't that interesting a game to me, never has been, and this book doesn't really make it more so. I also felt that a couple times the author sort of cheated by not telling you some stuff about some characters.
That said, it's still an engaging, fast read, and the portrait of Vegas in the 50s, written at the time, is compelling.
ericwelch's review
2.0
I guess the first question many would ask is why bother read these old pulp fiction novels. Nostalgia, plot, setting, voyeurism, writing style, pictures of busty blonds on the cover; all of these I suppose. For lack of a better reason, I guess it would be the same reason why some people watch football. They provide easy, often thoughtless, entertainment.
That being said, Hard Case Crime, reissued a whole series of novels from the fifties and early sixties, most of which might be defined as noir, or representing the underbelly of American culture.
No House Limit portrays Joe Martin, owner of an independent, i.e., not controlled by the syndicate, casino in Las Vegas. The syndicate has vowed to shut him down and their approach is to hire a well-known gambler, Bello, to gamble him out of existence. An implausible scenario, certainly. What makes the reader want to continue is the atmosphere, the ambiance, the recreation of what we think a fifties casino might be like. Note I suggested it’s what we imagine it might be like. Whether it was or not, is really irrelevant to me. It’s a story and an intriguing one that allows the reader to lose himself in another world.
Written by Steve Fisher who, according to a postscript by his son wrote close to one hundred novels in the fifties. It has a very archaic flavor with stock characters straight out of the movies for which Fisher wrote many scripts.
Bello was patterned after the infamous Nick the Greek, a rather pathetic gambler who was introduced to Michael Fisher by his father. Nick once said he had won and lost close to $500 million in his lifetime and what really made him pathetic in Michael’s eyes were the boxes of letters Nick kept in his garage from people who might enclose $5 or $10 and ask Nick to gamble it for them in hopes he would strike it rich for them to help pay their medical bills or save their home.
I certainly learned a lot about craps.
That being said, Hard Case Crime, reissued a whole series of novels from the fifties and early sixties, most of which might be defined as noir, or representing the underbelly of American culture.
No House Limit portrays Joe Martin, owner of an independent, i.e., not controlled by the syndicate, casino in Las Vegas. The syndicate has vowed to shut him down and their approach is to hire a well-known gambler, Bello, to gamble him out of existence. An implausible scenario, certainly. What makes the reader want to continue is the atmosphere, the ambiance, the recreation of what we think a fifties casino might be like. Note I suggested it’s what we imagine it might be like. Whether it was or not, is really irrelevant to me. It’s a story and an intriguing one that allows the reader to lose himself in another world.
Written by Steve Fisher who, according to a postscript by his son wrote close to one hundred novels in the fifties. It has a very archaic flavor with stock characters straight out of the movies for which Fisher wrote many scripts.
Bello was patterned after the infamous Nick the Greek, a rather pathetic gambler who was introduced to Michael Fisher by his father. Nick once said he had won and lost close to $500 million in his lifetime and what really made him pathetic in Michael’s eyes were the boxes of letters Nick kept in his garage from people who might enclose $5 or $10 and ask Nick to gamble it for them in hopes he would strike it rich for them to help pay their medical bills or save their home.
I certainly learned a lot about craps.
More...