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DRAWING DEAD
by Rick Gadziola
ECW Press, October 2006
260 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1550227386


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Rick Gadziola returns with the third installment of the Jake Morgan series. Like RAW DEAL and FREEZEOUT, his two earlier books, this one takes place in Las Vegas and features Jake Morgan, an ex-cop with a gambling problem who makes his living dealing Texas Hold 'Em at the Oasis Casino.

When a wealthy female casino patron takes a shine to Jake, it doesn't take much persuading from his supervisor for him to turn gigolo. While he's having sex for a $5,000 poker chip and a rich Japanese woman's goodwill, the hotel room is invaded, the room service waiter murdered and the rich woman shot twice in the head. Luckily, but implausibly, Jake's presence in the room goes undetected by the murderer because he is under the covers, along with a large amount of bedding that somehow obscures his body.

Jake is arrested, but soon exonerated with a little help from his pal on the force, Lt Oakley. No sooner is Jake free than Oakley convinces him to deal some poker at a retirement party for a well-known police officer named 'The Bull'. Early in the evening, Jake overhears a group of cops plan to "take out Bulloch." Before he can communicate this threat to Oakley, another woman captures Jake's interest. This one's named Laura Bulloch, the niece of the guest of honor and herself a cop working Vice.

Laura turns out to be a nymphomaniac with a strong interest in S&M. She is apparently simultaneously famously promiscuous and such a good Vice cop that she's being considered for the Captain's job in her unit. She and Jake manage to evade a high speed car chase with lots of gunfire on page 63 and go on to enjoy a whole book's worth of sexual innuendo, visits to S&M supply shops and sore body parts.

I really liked Gadziola's previous book FREEZEOUT, and while I was disappointed in this entry, I still hold out some hope for the series. Jake is a great character, down-to-earth, funny and self-deprecating, and Gadziola does a good job of recreating the traditional noir dialogue with tongue firmly in cheek.

In DRAWING DEAD, though, the premise and plot are completely implausible, and Jake's behavior in the final scene is so wimpy that he lost what little respect I still had for him. There's not much suspense here, either, since the reader figures out what's going on a long, long time before Jake twigs to it. Worse, the weird and wonderful atmosphere of Las Vegas that Gadziola captured so well in the prior books is almost completely missing here. The first scenes take place in a casino and the last scenes are placed in the desert, but the rest of the action could be happening anywhere.

If I were you, I'd take a pass on this one. Still, every author is entitled to the occasional misstep. I'm hoping that in his next effort Gadziola will find a way to return to the genuinely well-crafted plotting and style of his prior books.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, September 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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