Balling the Jack - Softcover

Baldwin, Frank

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684845814 ISBN 13: 9780684845814

Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD, 1998

Synopsis

"Betting all you have cleans the system," says young Wall Street paralegal Tom Reasons as he hands over $400 of his weekly $447 paycheck to his bookie, Toadie, in bets on baseball games. But it's the low-profile sport of darts that gets Tom into real trouble, in this raucous, raunchy thriller. When he loses $40,000 on the toss of a feathered sliver of steel, Tom has to outsmart Mafia loan sharks to stay in one piece. Along the way, Frank Baldwin manages to tap into the energy of ambitious, amoral, and frighteningly fascinating 20-somethings.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Scribner
"It'll keep you turning pages."--Worth

"Here's the first writer I've encountered in a long time whose prose can drink me under the table."--Douglas, Rushkoff, author of "The Ecstasy Club"

From the Back Cover:

Balling the Jack:
to risk everything on the one go ['New York slang']

Tom Reasons is a man who likes to live life close to the edge. He believes in deliberately risking the last dollar, the hangover, the slap in the face – because these are the things that remind him he’s alive. Which is why each Friday Tom stakes almost his entire weekly salary on a ball game: if he wins he’s flush for the rest of the week and New York is his for the taking; if he loses, he lives on pot noodles until the next Friday.

Tom’s other obsession (apart from his lost love, Lisa) is darts. He and his friends are in a local pub team and this year they have a crack at the final. But Tom gets cocky and challenges the captain of the meanest, dirtiest team in the league to a money-match. And then doubles the bet. Now the race is on for Tom to come up with the $40,000 stake and get his team to win without telling them how much is riding on the game ... and suddenly this is one adrenaline rush that even Tom could live without.

An irresistible tale of love and gambling in the big city, 'Balling the Jack' is one of the fastest, sharpest, funniest first novels to have come along in years.

About this edition

• Publisher: Prentice Hall & IBD
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0684845814
• ISBN 13: 9780684845814
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272