Shadow Counter

by Tom Kakonis

Timothy Waverly, an ex-con and ambitious card shark, is up to his ears in trouble in Las Vegas as he becomes involved in an ingenious basketball point-shaving scam and matches wits with a calculating psychopath, with his sister's life at stake. Reprint.

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Tom Kakonis has been hailed by critics nationwide as the heir-apparent to Elmore Leonard… and for good reason. His stunning thrillers Treasure Coast, Michigan Roll, and Criss Cross, among others, blend dark humor with gritty storytelling for compelling, and innovative crime noir capers packed with unique, sharply drawn characters and shocking twists

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third and final volume in Tom Kakonis’s excellent series featuring Timothy Waverly, a professional card player who has found nothing but trouble ever since Kakonis first introduced him in Michigan Roll. At the end of that book, Waverly had to flee Michigan with some especially nasty characters on his trail.

At the end of the second book, Double Down, he and his long-time partner Bennie Epstein had to race away from another dicey situation in Florida. It’s now 1993, and they’ve landed in Vegas, living in a pitiful house and trying to fly under the radar while they attempt to cobble together the stake that will put them back on Easy Street.

Waverly is playing Blackjack, very carefully and for very small stakes. Carefully, because he knows that if he gets branded as a card counter, he’ll be banned from every casino in town; for very small stakes, because that’s all he has and because Bennie is losing their money on “sure thing” sports bets about as fast as Waverly can make it at the tables.

This being Vegas, there are a lot of other dreamers and schemers in town, among them, Wyman Brewster, a self-proclaimed “healer” who believes that virtually any illness, no matter how severe, can be cured by cleansing the body of impurities and replacing them with natural ingredients. Brewster is working out of a storefront center where he counsels patients and sells his natural products, but he dreams of opening a beautiful clinic, somewhere far away from Vegas, where he can chart a new future for the deadly sick.

Also in town is Ignatius “Eggs” La Revere, a sadistic con man who not only loves to fleece his victims but to do great and imaginative bodily harm to them as well. Both Brewster and La Revere are in desperate need of money, and each thinks that the other might be able to supply it. Normally, this would have nothing to do with the fortunes of Timothy Waverly and Bennie Epstein, but as fate would have it, Waverly’s very naïve sister, Valerie, lands in town from South Dakota.

Valerie, who lives a “natural” life herself, is enamored of Brewster’s reputation and is determined to join his team. That puts her smack in the middle of the maneuvering between Brewster and La Revere, and Waverly believes he has an obligation to step in and save his sister from disaster, even though she refuses to believe his wise counsel. What follows is a great story with a cast of marvelous and very quirky characters. Vegas is on display at its shabbiest best and Timothy Waverly continues to be a great protagonist.

This book, along with the first two books in the series, have long been out of print but are now being re-released in great new trade paperback editions by Brash Books. All three of the books have held up very well and seem as fresh as they were when they first appeared in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. It’s hard to imagine that there’s any fan of crime fiction that would not enjoy them, but do yourself a favor and start with Michigan Roll. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

[Bandit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just right this trilogy ending, since the quality wasn't holding up anyway. Beats dragging out a stale formula and recycling scenarios as so many authors tend to do for an easy buck. This, last in Waverly trilogy, is easily the weakest of them. This time trying the cards in Vegas, after burning contacts and good will in Michigan and Florida, Waverly as always just can't get it right, Kakonis didn't even give him a femme fatale this time, there is a femme, but she happens to be Waverly's sister, a hippie dippie naïf who wanders into a very wrong place at a very wrong time, which is pretty much any place any time around Waverly, his very own danger zone. Not just the lack or romance, the plot this time around wasn't up to Kakonis' usual standards or maybe there is only so much mileage one can get out of cards, white trash and half assed criminals. There is also all that racism and bigotry, that seems to be so overwhelmingly ever present that at times it seems as if Kakonis has specifically created these stories as platforms for offensive slurs. Anyway, that's that, I've read most of his work now, some of it was quite good, especially while the novelty was still there. This one isn't so much and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone trying out the author for the first time. Unless you're really into cards maybe.

[Mrs. Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom Kakonis’ decision to waste so much of his life teaching grad students and writing textbooks cost mystery fans dearly. The terrific fiction he produced during the 90s earned him accolades. He was compared to Leonard and in my opinion he was better - cooler, more literate. The best of his novels were the three about gambler Timothy Waverly, of which the last, Shadow Counter, was in my opinion the finest (and the most noirish). The improbable characters whose lives - and deaths - inexorably entwine are so effectively drawn that they are more memorable than real people. Highly recommended.

[Liedzeit Liedzeit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tim Waverly versucht diesmal sein Glück in Las Vegas. Zu ihm stößt die etwas naive Schwester, die einem Wunderheiler anhängt.

[Rick Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last of the Timothy Waverly trilogy. All good. Michigan Roll is my favorite of the three.

[Mark Hepler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kakonis structures Shadow Counter in such a way that stream-of-consciousness winds seamlessly through its third-person action scenes. In the opening, for example, Kakonis plops you down at a blackjack table where, from a gambler’s point of view, you’ll try to outwit suspicious dealers while you count cards and read other players minds. Later on, you’ll bump up against their sorry lives again as you drift through Vegas’ underbelly and encounter truly detestable baddies, sleazy hookers and all manner of grifters.

Besides giving you a gift for math, Kakonis equips you for the adventure by providing you an enviable vocabulary and a reluctant heroic streak—tools of dubious utility in Vegas. Have fun!