Both an English professor and a high-stakes gambler, Jim Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Always one step ahead, Bennett pits his creditor against the operator of a gambling ring and leaves his dysfunctional relationship with his wealthy mother in his wake. He plays both sides, immersing himself in an illicit, underground world while garnering the attention of Frank, a loan shark with an interest...

A disarmingly involving portrait of a family struggling to stay together through the Great Depression, The Cape Ann is an unforgettable story of life from a child’s-eye view.
Lark Erhardt, the six-year-old narrator of The Cape Ann, and her fiercely independent mother dream of owning their own house; they have their hearts set on the Cape Ann, chosen from a house catalog. But when Lark’s father’s gambling...

"He should have thrown her out. But when club owner Alexander Lavoie catches a mysterious blonde counting cards at his vingt-et-un table, he's more intrigued than angry. He has to see more of this beauty-in his club, in his office, in his bed. But first he'll have to devise a proposition she can't turn down. Gossip said he was an assassin. Common sense told her to stay away. But Angelique Archer was desperate, and Lavoie's club offered a surefire...

Ray Parisi is in trouble. Fired from his anchor job at ESPN after one too many public humiliations, he is holed up in a motel and in desperate need of a break. His ex-wife is shacking up with another guy in his old house, a Cambodian bookie wants to kill him, and he's wanted by the New York State Police. A few days before the Fourth of July, he unexpectedly receives an inheritance from his long-lost father, and it seems like all of his problems might...

"Everyone has heard of the Gameshouse. But few know all its secrets... It is the place where fortunes can be made and lost through chess, backgammon--every game under the sun. But those whom fortune favors may be invited to compete in the higher league, where the games played are of politics and nations, of economics and kings. It is a contest where capture the castle involves real castles and where hide-and seek takes place on the scale of a continent....

"Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and widely considered to be Edna Ferber's greatest achievement, So Big is a classic novel of turn-of-the-century Chicago. It is the unforgettable story of Selina Peake DeJong, a gambler's daughter, and her struggles to stay afloat and maintain her dignity and her sanity in the face of marriage, widowhood, and single parenthood." --

In this stylish and complex memoir, Laymon, an English professor at the University of Mississippi and novelist (Long Division), presents bittersweet episodes of being a chubby outsider in 1980s Mississippi. He worships his long-suffering, resourceful grandmother, who loves the land her relatives farmed for generations and has resigned herself to the fact of commonplace bigotry. Laymon laces the memoir with clever, ironic observations about secrets,...

They are a dangerous duke, a fierce lord, and an infamous earl--dark, bold, brave men who know exactly what they want. And there is only one woman who can bring them to their knees ... He is first and foremost--at everything. A man who's made his own way through ruthless cunning and sheer force of will. A strong and imposing Scot who can turn on the charm but does not suffer fools. His title: Lord Chief Justice of the High Court. His name: Cassius...

"Smoke Jensen was a towering Western hero. Now his two freewheeling, long-lost nephews, Ace and Chance Jensen, are blazing a legendary trail of their own... Riverboat gambling is a blast, until hot-headed Chance finds out just what he won in his final hand against a Missouri River gambler named Haggarty. Chance's "prize" is a beautiful Chinese slave girl named LIng. The twins want to set Ling free and keep their cash, but at Fort Benton, Ling gives...

Narrative of the Hawks-Ravenal family on the Mississippi, in "Cotton Blossom", their floating palace theater.