The Picasso Flop

by: Vince Van Patten and Robert Randisi

Published by: Mysterious Press

Reviewed by Bob Pike, CSP, CPAE Speakers Hall of Fame

Whether you're a poker player who enjoys a good mystery--or a mystery aficionado who enjoys poker--you'll enjoy The Picasso Flop. World Poker tour host Vince Van Patten introduces us to Jimmy Spain, an old-school pro who was a force to be reckoned with any time he sat down to a game, long before television made poker popular.

He's been gone from the game for fifteen years and rumors abound. The
leading rumor is that he killed someone and has been in prison.
Whatever the reason, he's back and he has a protege, 22-year-old Kat
Landrigan, a sharp but spoiled rich kid who wants to be the next female poker superstar.

Jimmy takes Kat to Las Vegas and puts up the $16,000 entry fee for each of them to enter a World Poker Tour (WPT) event at the Bellagio. But Jimmy's past begins to surface. An old friend of his father's, both cops in Philadelphia, runs into him and wonders where Jimmy has been. An former cellmate wants to blackmail Jimmy for a secret deal that he made. And Mike Sexton, the WPT host who remembers him from the old days, asks for his help.

An upstart poker whiz is murdered the first day of the tournament--and
then another. The common clue, three faces cards, a Picasso Flop, is
found on the bodies. The police don't understand the poker world, or the players and politics within it, but and Jimmy does. He also has his father's instincts.

While Jimmy and Kat try to focus on the game, Jimmy also tries to solve the murders. But a wily Las Vegas police detective has his eye on Jimmy, because of his past.

A surprise ending, and enough poker action will make you want to shuffle up and deal.

Armchair Interviews says: The plot has more twists than a pretzel.