Dead Man's Hand

September 3, 2007
Despite some excellent individual efforts from a Who's Who of crime writers, this uneven anthology of poker-related stories never truly capitalizes on the game's innate drama. Any mystery lover will enjoy Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks story, “The Eastvale Ladies' Poker Circle,” though poker is merely a backdrop in this and too many of the stories. Michael Connelly fans will appreciate Harry Bosch bluffing out a murder suspect in “One-Dollar Jackpot,” while a rigged poker game on a cruise ship has dire consequences in Alexander McCall Smith's haunting “In the Eyes of Children.” Poker does occupy center stage in Jeffery Deaver's “Bump,” where a former TV star tries to increase his popularity by appearing in a made-for-TV poker tournament, but the poker details are suspect. Professional poker player Howard Lederer's introduction reminds the reader of the enormous effect poker has had on American culture, but this anthology never really mines the game's explosive popularity.

November 1, 2007
In its 11th edition, "The Best American Mystery Stories" (edited by Penzler with a prominent author as guest editor, this year Hiaasen) continues to gather some of the best previously published mystery stories from magazines and collections. The authors in this edition include some not associated with the genre, notably Louise Erdrich with a tale of the effect of a fake kidnapping on its victim. Other contributors are Peter Blauner, Lawrence Block, Laura Lippman, Joyce Carol Oates, and James Lee Burke. Most chilling are the killers in stories by Chris Adrian and John Dufresne: an eight-year-old girl and a religious family man. Solid and dependable.

Forget the tournaments and TV coveragepoker is celebrated more for its male bonding, risk-taking, and frisson-adding illegality. The 15 stories in "Dead Man's Hand" center on the game as played by good buddies, respectable family men, cops, PIs, shady men, even high-class women. Or poker may be used as a ruse and not played at all, as in Rupert Holmes's "The Monks of the Abbey Victoria." Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch solves a murder with a game of liar's poker in "One-Dollar Jackpot," and a cop's dreams of a decades-old game leads to his finding his father's killer in John Lescroart's "A Friendly Little Game." Another quality collection from Penzler.

The point of "Expletive Deleted" is that expletives aren't deleted, as Mark Billingham notes in his in-your-face introduction celebrating the f-word and berating readers who complain about sex and language. It starts off, appropriately enough, with Laura Lippman's "A Good **** Spoiled," in which golf is a cover for an affair. The levels of sex, profanity, and violence increase throughout, until the book ends with two of the most horrific stories, about war and its aftermath. Yet one of theseJohn Rickards's "Twenty Dollar Future," involving a 12-year-old boy whose father and friends are killed in clan warfaredoesn't seem to fit. Nor does Sarah Weinman's "Lookout," a clever tale about danger lurking in a community, with not an expletive in it. So what's the point? A marginal purchase at best.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2008
Adult/High School-The mainstream popularity of poker and the intrigue of mystery and crime will ensure demand for this anthology. However, poker enthusiasts may be less satisfied than mystery fans, who will be attracted by such authors as Laura Lippman, Michael Connelly, and Alexander McCall Smith. Stories vary with respect to the depth to which the game is the central theme, but what they all have in common is their accessibility to readers who are not seasoned players. Mystery aficionados will enjoy John Lescroarts A Friendly Little Game, in which the repressed memories of a fathers death lead to new clues in an old crime. Other stories, including Rupert Holmess The Monks of the Abbey Victoria and Jeffrey Deavers Bump, use poker as the façade to cover up larger crimes. Teens will be particularly attracted to the tales that portray young adult protagonists. In Joyce Carol Oatess Strip Poker, a teen finds herself in a potentially dangerous poker game, only to turn the tables on her would-be attackers. Christopher Coakes Pitch Black depicts the lengths to which fear and anger can take a teenage musician, and Sue DeNymmes Poker and Shooter is a common yet chilling story of the popular crowd preying on less-fortunate students. Despite the variation in both quality and suspense, teens will find this volume more accessible, plausible, and entertaining than other recently published poker collections, such as Pete Hautmans "Full House" (Putnam, 2007)."Lynn Rashid, Marriots Ridge High School, Marriotsville, MD"

Copyright 2008 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2007
Readers playing this anthology like a hand of Texas Hold Em might marvel at the three strong pairs it deals from its fresh deck: two wry tales of the cutthroat TV business (Jeffery Deavers celeb-poker-themed Bump and Rupert Holmes fifties-set The Monks of the Abbey Victoria); two girls in high-stakes jeopardy (Joyce Carol Oates Strip Poker and Laura Lippmans Hardly Knew Her); and two police procedurals in the hole (Michael Connellys Bosch-starring One-Dollar Jackpot and Peter Robinsons British The Eastvale Ladies Poker Circle). When a third cop card (John Lescroarts clever A Friendly Little Game) shows up on the river, the resulting full house could take down a decent pot. Wild cards worth a peek include Sam Hills old-school The Stake, Parnell Halls jocular locked-room mystery Deal Me In, Christopher Coakes harrowing Pitch Black, and Eric Van Lustbaders The Uncertainty Principle, which plays with both the poker and crime-story forms. Several of the writers demonstrate only cursory knowledge of the gameDeaver even stumbles on the rulesbut most understand human nature well enough to stay in the chips.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)