Strip Rules - Couverture rigide

Limón, Martin

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1641298308 ISBN 13 : 9781641298308

Editeur : Soho Crime, 2026

Synopsis

In this raucous, high-stakes heist novel, a down-and-out card counter gets the chance to turn his life around by taking down a ruthless Vegas casino boss.

Blackjack pro Ronnie “the Technician” Redfield, the “most feared card counter between Vegas and Reno,” has his life blown up when a casino owner decides to take him down. Card counting isn’t illegal—since thinking isn’t illegal, yet—but the court battle costs Ronnie, a Vietnam vet, his livelihood, his sobriety, and his family. His wife is dead and his teenage daughter, Margot, has disappeared without a trace.

Now, three years later, he’s just about dug himself out of his hole. He’s living in a trailer outside Vegas when his old army buddy “Wild” Bill Grimsley, now a casino handler for high rollers, shows up in a limo to drag Ronnie back into the action. Bill has a revenge plot to take down Rodrigo Gwynne, the nastiest, most exploitative casino owner on the Strip. Bill’s grudge is personal, but Ronnie’s involvement will be strictly professional. All he has to do is what he does best: make money off the house. If he succeeds, Ronnie’s share of the take will be enough to get his life back on track—and hire a detective to track down Margot.

To infiltrate Gwynne’s casino, Ronnie assembles a team of misfit geniuses, blackjack pros who excel at role-playing or flying under the radar. The plan is off to a raring start, the card counters evolving their strategy through every new setback, when intimidation erupts into deadly violence. Ronnie could lose everything—was his comeback worth the risk?

Cult favorite crime novelist Martin Limón, author of the Sueño & Bascom series, shines in his first-ever stand-alone, drawn from his own experiences at the blackjack table.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Martin Limón retired from military service after twenty years in the US Army. He calls his military career “exceedingly undistinguished,” comprising odd jobs, writing for Stars and Stripes, serving as an artillery gun crew chief, and working in military intelligence. It was during his time in the army that he took up card counting for extra money. He is the author of fifteen mysteries in the cult classic  Sueño and Bascom series, beginning with Jade Lady Burning, as well as the short story collection Nightmare Range. He lives near Seattle.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

Chapter 1: Splitting Tens

“Splitting tens!” the dealer shouted over her left shoulder, then in a lilting voice, “White plays.”

The pit boss looked up from his cash inventory sheet, raised his right eyebrow, and sauntered toward the blackjack table.

Chips spangled the green felt crescent, interspersed by playing cards dealt face up. The canted wooden card holder, called a shoe, was about half depleted and the plastic discard rack to the right of the dealer was proportionately half full.

“Well,” Cora said, “you gonna give me a card or what?” When the dealer hesitated, she said, “You waitin’ for permission?” She glanced at the skinny pit boss. “From him?”

The pit boss surveyed the table, trying to act like the wise old man that he definitely was not. Cora had bet two white chips worth $500 each and received a pair of ladies—that is, a queen of hearts and a queen of diamonds. In blackjack, all face cards are worth ten points, which gave her a total of twenty. The dealer was showing a six of spades with her hole card still face down.

The goal of the game is to come as close to twenty-one as possible without going over, so a total of twenty is generally an excellent hand. But because of the sky-high true count, and the wealth of aces and tens remaining in the shoe, Cora had followed the math and split the red queens, sliding another cool $1,000 beside the betting circle.

The pit boss’s store of wisdom was quickly being depleted but he also must’ve known that there really was no decision to make. Splitting tens might be unusual, even absurd in the minds of most players, but it certainly wasn’t against the rules. Finally, he nodded his consent.

The first card to hit Cora’s split queen was a jack. “Looks like she just had a baby,” Cora chortled. She slid another two white chips—totaling $1,000—forward. “Split again.”

Cora was now playing three hands, with $1,000 riding on each. Gawkers started to gather, gasping. Murmuring about the value of the rarely seen white chips. When the dealer separated the queen and the jack, she immediately hit the jack with a nine.

Cora waved her hand palm down and said, “Stay.”

Without hesitation, the dealer slapped another up card on the queen. An ace. An intake of breath from the growing crowd. “Stay,” Cora said once again. When you catch an ace on split tens you don’t get paid three-to-two like a blackjack. That’s only for the first two cards dealt. Rather, you get paid even money, if it wins.

The dealer slapped a card on the final queen. A deuce.

According to the signs I’d flashed Cora just seconds before, the running count was eighteen. It was a four-deck game, half depleted, there were two decks left in the shoe and that made the count per deck, that is, the true count, nine. An advantage to the player of about 4 percent. Cora knew what to do. “Stay,” she said, waving once again.

Finished with Cora, the dealer proceeded to the next player at the table, keeping a jaundiced eye on the $3,000 in white chips sitting in piles of two each beside the split ladies and the baby jack.

When she came to me, I had only one lone green chip sitting on the felt before me. Twenty-five dollars. The two cards originally dealt to me were a six and a five. “Double,” I said and slid out another green chip. The dealer dealt the hit card face down and proceeded to her own hand. She turned over her hole card. A five. That, coupled with her six, gave her a total of eleven. Bad news for Cora. Bad news for me. If she hit herself with a ten, of which there was an abundance in the deck, the dealer would reach twenty-one and beat every hand that Cora was holding except for the ace-ten, which would be a “push.” That is, neither the dealer nor the player would win or lose that particular hand but rather they’d both keep their money. Out of her three thousand bet, Cara could easily lose two thousand and retain one thousand.

The dealer reached for the hit card, slid it out of the shoe and across the felt, and slapped it atop her five-six.

An ace.

This wasn’t too surprising since both Cora and I knew that the remaining cards in the shoe were chock-full of not only tens but also aces, which is why the running count was so high. And not coincidentally, why she’d been betting so much. And why she’d been splitting tens; hoping to catch more aces and tens on top of them.

In the routine play of the game of blackjack, the ace has an optional value of either eleven or one. Eleven wouldn’t have helped, so the obvious choice was one. The dealer now had a total of twelve.

Angrily, she reached for the next card, slid it out, and flipped it atop her total.

A king. Twenty-two. She’d busted.

All players were paid, including Cora, who collected a short stack of six creamy white $500 chips.

His teeth set in a grimace, the pit boss barked at the dealer, “Shuffle.”

She did, hanging her head as if she’d done something wrong.

I glanced around at the gawking crowd. Some of them were congratulating Cora, who nodded and acknowledged them like the conquering royalty that she was. One guy stood toward the back of the crowd, arms crossed, knobby elbows pointing askew of his bony frame. Incongruously, his cheeks were puffy, pushed out above a smiling mouth. Eyes smirking.

He knew me. I knew him and I didn’t like him. Not in the least.

I flashed the emergency abort signal to Cora. Without visibly acknowledging my order, she calmly asked the dealer for a plastic chip tray and then proceeded to load it with her miniature Chinese wall of white five-hundred-dollar chips, black one-hundred-dollar chips, and a handful of green twenty-five-dollar chips. Before she rose from the table, I’d already fled toward the parking lot.

Just outside the front entrance, a posse was waiting, badges hanging from lanyards around their necks. Agents of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. They were led by the skinny guy with the puffy cheeks who I’d seen inside. I didn’t know his name but the counters in town called him Oscar, as in Oscar Mayer, since he was such a wienie.

Neither Cora nor I had done anything wrong. Counting cards isn’t a crime, it is in fact merely a form of thinking. And even in a casino, thinking isn’t illegal, no matter how much the bosses would love to make it so. However, it is greatly frowned upon. The Nevada court system has ruled, repeatedly, that card counting by itself is not illegal. But this is Las Vegas, and in the eyes of the people who run the casino industry, i.e. the mob, counting cards is a capital crime that should be punishable by death.

Oscar ordered his minions to shackle me, hand and foot.

That was all it took. As they stepped toward me, I ran.

I dodged two of them and shoved aside another, then leapt down the curved terrace of about six steps. Traffic was not a worry at this time of night and I sprinted into the maze of parked cars, dodging this way and that, trying to put distance between myself and my pursuers. Exactly where I was going, I didn’t know. I had only a vague idea of escaping down some dark alley or finding some fence to climb or diving into some irrigation ditch to swim across to safety. I had just reached the far limit of the parking lot when a crouching shadow thrust itself toward me, aiming for my crotch—a broad-shouldered guy in a rent-a-cop outfit, tackling me in a way he must’ve learned in high school. I twisted away from the impact but this time to no avail.

I found out later that he’d just gotten off duty. Hearing the commotion at the front entrance, he’d stopped to gawk, then waited while the panicked pinball that was me bounced its way toward him. For heroic action, above and beyond the call of duty, they probably gave him a commendation, or some other damn useless piece of paper. Anything but money.



Chapter 2: Sin City Law

The attorney entered the closet-like conference room, sat at the single table across from me, and snapped open his briefcase. “Are you Ronnie Redfield?” he asked.

I told him I was, and he offered his hand and said, “I’m Fred Raymond of Raymond and Raymond and Raymond.” We shook hands. He was a dapper man, slender, and couldn’t have been over thirty. Casually he said, “So you’re a counter.”

When I didn’t answer, he grinned. “Oh yes, I shouldn’t ask.”

I’d called his law firm because I’d heard of them from other card counters. Not that they were so great, but so many of the law firms in the city represented the casino industry in various matters and Raymond and Ramond and Raymond was one of the few that would take on card counters as clients.

He handed me a form in triplicate, already filled out. “Read it and sign,” he said. “Our representation agreement.”

It was one page, single-spaced; all tight legalese. I scanned it, saw a few fat percentages, like 30, and the number $10,000 for their upfront retainer. My daughter, Margot, had already taken that to them. Without asking questions, I signed.

“They treatin’ you all right in here?” he asked, indicating with a cant of his head the Clark County Jail.

“So far,” I said. Having been in the army, I knew that complaining about the small stuff never did any good.

“Good. They’re charging you and the other person. What’s her name?”

“Cora,” I told him.

“Yes, Cora. They’re going after something a little unusual.” He pulled a document out of his briefcase and read it. “‘Conspiracy to commit deceptive practices knowingly engaged in with the intent of securing winnings under false pretenses.’”

“Conspiracy?” I asked. “How can it be a ‘conspiracy’ to do something that isn’t illegal in the first place?”

“Good,” he replied. “You should’ve gone to law school.”

“Didn’t they?” I asked.

He smiled but didn’t respond.

Cora had been arrested, and in addition, her chips were confiscated. Supposedly held as “evidence.” This treatment was a gross overreaction. Nevada casinos have the right to deny service to anyone they don’t like; and, believe me, they despise card counters. But usually, they just kick you off the blackjack table, tell you they don’t like your play and let you leave the casino, warning that if you come back, they will press charges for trespassing. All permissible under state law. But keeping your chips is never permissible. It is, in fact, theft. Still, sometimes casinos do it, daring the over-matched card counter to hire an attorney and try to get his or her money back. Too often, the counter decides it isn’t worth the time, trouble, and expense, and lets it go.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Soho Crime
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1641298308
• ISBN 13: 9781641298308
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 224
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Soho Press; https://sohopress.com/the-best-of-soho-press-2021/; ; 4 rue Fernand Laguide; Corbeil Essonnes; Ile de France; 91100; France