Spoiler alert: The following book review contains plot details which may not only hamper readers' enjoyment, but also be detrimental to national security.
Where's a problem-solver like Tony Valentine when the FBI really needs him, say for former Bureau head Louis Freeh's appearance before the 9/11 Commission in April? The crime-fighting agency, getting beat with the ugly stick by the commission and Bush administration, certainly could have used the help from an ace like Valentine, James Swain's resourceful private eye, a likable, "been there, done that," kind of guy. While not exactly the stereotype of a hard-charging P.I.—Valentine's a 63-year-old widower in ill-fitting pants and a cheap rental car—he gets the job done.
Loaded Dice, Swain's fourth Tony Valentine thriller, is a tale of a ragtag terrorist intent on bringing apocalyptic destruction to Las Vegas. Valentine not only exposes the error of the Bureau's ways, he also takes down the terrorist, saves his son from the clutches of evil, thwarts a trio of greedy casino bosses, rescues a buddy's old Vegas-style casino, brawls with a crooked cop, dispatches a razor-wielding accountant, squares off against his arch nemesis (who is backed by—you guessed it—the FBI), and almost gets the girl. Whew!
By book's end, Valentine calmly (well, almost calmly—the traumatic experience does force him back into the vicious grip of nicotine) returns to his Florida home and resumes his business as an anti-grift consultant. Knowing all this doesn't particularly detract from the story itself, which isn't so much of a whodunit, as a "what's-gonna-happen-next."
Loaded Dice is a blunt object which Swain swings in so many directions that it's impossible to not pay attention. With so many events happening simultaneously, the book defies you to put it down without turning just one more page to see what unfurls next. In that respect, Swain has done a masterful job, which is undoubtedly what has drawn readers to the other titles in the series: Grift Sense, Funny Money and Sucker Bet.
Swain also skillfully details the inner workings of casinos, scams and the gambling life. But ultimately, this business of trafficking in doomsday scenarios (despite Swain's attempts at leavening his story with humor) is more than a little off-putting. Swain clearly has no problem borrowing heavily from reports that the 9/11 hijackers visited Las Vegas immediately before the attacks. I guess we have to accept that these news stories are now fodder for entertainment.
On the one hand, popular entertainment has been borrowing from real-world events for at least a couple decades now, dating back to at least Tom Clancy's Cold War fascination in the 1980s (and the current adaptation of video games bearing his name) and beyond. But in the past there was a belief—right or wrong—that world events were at an arm's length. When this balance was upset, for example the 1983 TV-movie The Day After, which depicted life after the Bomb, the public banged its drum and sent advertisers and network execs scurrying into their financial bomb shelters.
Today, a made-for-TV movie such as Meltdown (airing on FX, June 10 and 13) in which terrorists take over a nuclear reactor and hold the nation hostage barely causes a stir. The tag line for the movie warns viewers, "The threat is real," which is a good enough reason to turn off the news for a couple of hours so you can have the bejesus scared out of you "for pretend." Who knows, by the time you flip back to CNN, the same scenario might be unfolding at a reactor near you.
This is the category into which falls Loaded Dice. By now, most of us are familiar with stories of how the 9/11 terrorists spent time in Vegas—though exactly what they did is still unclear. Maybe it doesn't matter since no ill came of it, but I can't take much comfort in revisiting that knowledge—even in what would be an otherwise breezy, readable yarn.
Loaded Dice would have been a much different book if Tony Valentine had failed and the terrorist had wasted a couple of major hotel-casinos and their inhabitants. What kind of fun is there in a lighthearted thriller when everyone dies?