Tony Valentine, a retired cop, is a man with his hands full. As a gambling consultant for Las Vegas casino owner Nick Nicocropolis he's got to figure out how his arch nemesis and world-class gambling cheater Frankie Fontaine got out of prison and is robbing Nick's Acropolis blind without Nick knowing it. As a father, Valentine's got to figure out how to straighten out the life of a son who resists all attempts to make something decent of himself before it's too late.

This is my third experience reveling in the author's expertise in the scams and cheats of the gambling world. If you haven't yet picked up on his action, the pleasure of his company in the form of supersleuth Valentine awaits you. This mystery thriller, for example, is not a story about dead bodies but the slow and obscure death of a casino being bled by a master. Yarn after yarn, Swain diverts you like few other can in the fast shuffle and slime of gaming.

Valentine is nothing if he's not a decent human being with a special "grift sense," as he calls it, that allows him to outsmart the best of the sharks. Only this time out, there's a terrorist who has befriended his errant son Gerry, making the stakes higher than the strangulation of a casino and the two-fold effect of the escapade somewhat diluted.

For the best introduction to Swain, start with his superb "Grift Sense."