Book #53 - Grift Sense

I got hooked again by James Swain and his gambling books. Grift Sense is the first one, and I read it last year, but went through it again to see how the writing has changed.

It was amazing to me how unpolished, how rough and gruff both Tony Valentine and the writing are in this book. We learn about Tony, get more of a feeling for a rough ex-cop, a more emotional ex-cop, one that is more than willing to vent outrage against cheaters in the writing than in later books.

I suppose that’s OK, and that we’d age and mellow as time passes, which seems to happen in the books. We see a very distance relationship with his son, and a much different relationship with Mabel as well.

A good read, and worth getting into for this series. I don’t think this is the best representative of the series. Funny Money or Mr. Lucky are better.