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Type of bind: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780843957686
ISBN number: 0843957689
Label: Hard Case Crime
Manufacturer: Hard Case Crime
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 220
Printing Date: January 30, 2007
Publishing house: Hard Case Crime
Sale Popularity Level: 128106
Studio: Hard Case Crime
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Rated by buyers 
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Lucky at Cards is a rough mix of a great card game tale like Milton Burton's The Rogue's Game with James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice. Unfortunately, it is by an early Lawrence Block and not up to the quality of his later works such as the Edgar award winning When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.
That's not to say it's a bad book. His description of the poker game, and the strategies (or lack thereof) used by the players in this book are quite compelling. However, whenever an author ventures into territory like The Postman, then he is treading well-traveled ground and must struggle to find some way to keep us interested.
Bloch succeeds far more with that task in the card playing aspect than he does the unfaithful wife aspect. Dialog in the former fairly crackles; in the latter it is hackneyed and predictable. As another reviewer has noted, you'll be better server by Bloch's The Girl with the Long Green Heart if you want femme fatales.
Rated by buyers 
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You know you're in the classic noir time zone when our protagonist is disgusted by the taste of nicotine on the fingers of the dentist working on his teeth. Bill, a professional card sharp, has lammed out of Chicago with a mouth full of broken teeth (guess why). A pause for dental repairs at some huckburg. An invitation to a poker game. At the game, one of the player's wives, Joyce, wanders in and, on the QT, let's Bill know she recognizes what he's doing. Bill and Joyce, being two of a kind, plot to take hubby's money.( Interestingly, it's not by killing him.) While Bill starts putting the set-up in place, he takes a job as cover. What do you know? He's good at this job! Then he meets a soulful school teacher, who digs him. Two paths. Which one? You may think you have it figured out, but Block pulls off a twist ending that will have you grinning and shaking your head. If you like your pulp high on wit and low on gunplay, this is your book.
Rated by buyers -
I enjoy playing poker, so when I spotted this book I couldn't pass it up. I fell in love with this story and could not put it down. This was my very first introduction to the great author Lawrence Block. I have since read more of his work and enjoyed them just the same. If you like mysteries and or pulp/hardboiled/crime fiction, this book will not disappoint. I recommend anything by Lawrence Block, and anything by the great publisher Hard Case Crime! Happy Reading!
Rated by buyers -
Here is yet another gem from the Hard Case Crime series. This, the third re-issue of noir master Lawrence Block (others have been Grifter's Game (Hard Case Crime) and The Girl With the Long Green Heart (Hard Case Crime)), proves to be a minor classic of the genre. Block, more than just thrilling us with another tough-talking pot-boiler, presents us with a Psych 101 study of the fringe criminal mind. Bill Maynard, a small time card sharp, settles in a bucolic village 3 hours outside of NYC long enough to become entangled with the well-off, Saturday night Poker playing, Country club set. He secures a good job in sales, meets a nice girl; and a not so nice broad. The intriguing part here is Bill's temptation, not by the dark side, but rather by the normal, everyday, boring, firmly anchored life of a successful salesman married to a devoted wife. Will Bill be drawn to the light side or will he finally have his marked cards and deal them too? Read Lucky At Cards, you won't feel cheated.
Rated by buyers -
After reading Grifter's Game and Girl with the Long Green Heart I couldn't wait to read Lucky at Cards. Alas, even masters like Lawrence Block drop a turkey ever now and then. Lucky at Cards features a former small time magician, Bill who is now a small time card sharp. He tried his game on the wrong people and got beaten and run out of Chicago. Recovering in a small town he runs into Joyce, a not so nice woman with a rich old husband, and a body that reminds Bill of a Greek goddess. Joyce and Bill don't love each other. They are tied togehter by frank lust for each other's bodies and for Joyce's husband's money. They aren't dreaming of living happily ever after. They just want to be together until the sexual fire and the cash run out. Their motivation seemed so weak to me that I actually lost interest. Sure Joyce has queen sized breasts and gives off more sexual heat than a Baltimore stripper but Bill goes to the extreme edge for her and there never seemed to be a good enough reason.
The descriptions are great, you can almost see Bill's hotel room and I felt great sympathy for the dull but decent people Bill meets and abuses. There's a little bit of hope for Bill but Joyce is simply a monster, a human Preying Mantis. Her character never rises above that. She's not complicated or particularly intresting. Lucky at Cards just didn't do it for me.
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