A Gambling Man: Aloysius Archer Book 2
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3.9 • 44 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Evoking the golden age of crime and for fans of Raymond Chandler and Agatha Christie, comes A Gambling Man from one of the world's bestselling thriller writers, David Baldacci.
A lucky roll of the dice
It is nearly 1950 and Aloysius Archer is on his way to Bay Town, California to take up a post with renowned gumshoe, Willie Dash. Making an overnight stop in Reno he gets lucky at the casino, meets a talented actor named Liberty Callahan with her sights set on Hollywood, and helps out a man threatened by mobsters for a bad debt. With a magnificent Delahaye motor as his repayment, Archer goes west with Liberty to seek work, fame and fortune. The journey is dangerous and full of surprises as Liberty shows her steel and reveals she has a past as dark as Archer’s.
A risk worth taking
In Bay Town, Willie Dash is tasked with finding out who is doing everything in their power to prevent his client, politician Douglas Kemper, from being mayor. As Archer and Dash dig deeper, they discover a town full of secrets and strange events. When two seemingly unrelated murders occur at Midnight Moods, a local burlesque club owned by local scion, Sawyer Armstrong, Archer and Dash must dig deep to find a connection between the killings.
All bets are off
To prove himself in his first case as a PI, Archer will need all of his skills to decipher the truth from the lies, the good from the evil and the relevance of the mysterious happenings offshore he saw during a late night boat ride in the Pacific. While Liberty, in a final perilous showdown, shows that she’s a true star in the making.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
There’s something irresistible about the high style and dark seediness of a classic California noir. The year is 1949, and World War II vet Aloysius Archer finds himself smack in the middle of West coast drama after he takes a job working for an FBI agent turned PI. Their first case leads them straight into a dark plot involving newly built casinos, a glamorous starlet with a secret past and a web of political blackmail. David Baldacci’s tightly woven plot and witty, rapid-fire dialogue is amusing and gripping. We appreciate how Archer’s no-nonsense, highly principled worldview provides a great contrast to the abject chaos that seems to erupt around him at every moment. Baldacci’s modern updating of the classic hardboiled detective hero makes A Gambling Man a cool, suspenseful and entertaining read.
