The Gambler S Apprentice

The Gambler’s Apprentice tells the story of a teenage boy growing up in Texas during desperate times. Willy, wise and capable beyond his years, learns the gambler’s trade and experiences adventures that demand quick wits—and sometimes violent actions. This is a multilayered story, full of Old West motifs such as cattle-rustling and gunfights along with more modern twists. Starting with a cattle-rustling scheme involving his father, Willy embarks on a life of crime early, eventually landing in a Laredo jail for shooting a man. During his incarceration he meets Sonny Archer, an itinerant gambler, who teaches Willy how to be a cardsharp. Upon his release, Willy roams the country, honing his new talent and getting into more trouble. During his time in New Orleans, Willy even winds up in a confrontation with an Italian crime ring. While all these adventures mold Willy into a clever card player and a masterful fortune-hunter, his grand ambition to be a professional gambler is thwarted when the influenza epidemic strikes. Willy is forced to return home to his family’s Texas ranch, where he faces the most challenging test of his young life and begins to prove that he is far more than simply an apprentice.

A role playing game of suspense, horror and hope in 2080 on the streets of Manhattan.

Britain's foremost writer on crime turns to the disappearance of Lord Lucan. The basis of the upcoming ITV drama, Lucan, starring Rory Kinnear and Christopher Eccleston For over thirty years, John Pearson has provided us with literary exposures of some of the most enigmatic people and underground organisations of our modern world. The Gamblers follows the fortunes of five men at the centre of the ultra-fashionable Clermont Set: the Clermont Club's eccentric founder John Aspinall; Dominic Elwes, who was to betray the Set's code of silence; the socialite owner of Annabel's, Mark Birley; the womanising, multi millionaire James Goldsmith; and the infamous Lord 'Lucky' Lucan. At the heart of the Set lay a belief that risk-takers are the people who make civilisation tick.Cruel, heartless and snobbish, they gambled with their fortunes and kept a stiff upper lip when they lost.This and a loyalty to each other that transcended everything else enabled them to rise above crises such as the long affair between Birley's wife and James Goldsmith, and the facial mutilation of the Birley's son by one of Aspinall's tigers.Pearson revels in the charisma, charm and wit of these dastardly but debonair millionaires, and reveals how their code led to one of the great unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century.

The most comprehensive reference book on betting and gambling on the market with over 1200 cross referenced entries. It explores the history, systems, theory, law, word origins and slang as well the scandals, scams and the huge array of unforgettable characters and audacious coups.

Convinced that Blackjack Chancer is behind the death of his youngest brother, Lukus Rheingold steals the Saturday night takings from the gambler's Wasteland Eldorado. Led by Marshal Jed Crane, the Wasteland posse is outwitted by Lukus's surviving brother, Kris. The Rheingold brothers head for their home at Nathan's Ford, where they are followed by a mysterious woman calling herself Lil Lavender, and later by Chancer and his hired gun, Fallon. All three have their own reasons for hunting Lukus Rheingold, and the hunt leads to a final bloody climax in the Rheingold family cemetery.