Double Down [Hardcover]

Tom Kakonis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1991

Timothy Waverly tries to beat the odds by beating the mob, encountering a cast of sleazy characters and a series of poker games along the way. Reprint. NYT. PW.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Introduced in the taut Michigan Roll , professional card player Tim Waverly is now hiding in Palm Beach while his partner, Bennie Epstein, hopes to save their lives by promising to pay back the Chicago crime boss whose delivery of heroin Tim sent up in smoke. Bennie returns with bad news: they have to turn over an additional $300,000 in two weeks or they will be killed. Neither of these worldly-wise ex-cons believes they'll be left alive even if they cough up the cash, but due to Kakonis's expert characterization, readers will believe simultaneously in the pair's weary hopelessness and their indomitable will to survive. Naturally, poker figures prominently in their plan as Tim joins a round of high-stake games with a group of overextended developers, among whom is an old childhood friend. Kakonis builds exquisite tension as Bennie and Tim, who becomes involved with the friend's wife, must outwit the pair of guns tailing them. Steamy with high-rent, low-life atmosphere, resolved in a violent shoot-out, the tale features an unforgettable cast, notably the belly-scratching thug from Chicago whose delight in junk food and women offsets the cool, pristine habits of the assassin he's apprenticed to. Aptly likened to Elmore Leonard, Kakonis offers a slightly darker vision. Serial rights to Penthouse.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Cracking good crime thriller that resurrects both the gambling hero of Kakonis's Michigan Roll (1988) and the exhilaratingly tough yet deeply humane storytelling that made that first novel one of the most memorable in recent crime fiction. While his canny older partner Bennie Epstein is in Chicago trying to mollify Carl Dietz, the top mobster that Timothy Waverly burned for 500,000 ``balloons'' in Michigan Roll, Waverly is holed up in a shoddy Palm Beach motel--not the kind of place to show off to Caroline Crown, the childhood sweetheart he runs into on a nearby street. But Waverly soon has bigger concerns than a rekindled old flame, even if she is married to his oldest friend: Dietz wants to be paid back in full, with a heavy interest, and- -Waverly correctly suspects--plans to ice the gambler and his pal anyway after the two-week payback period is over. In fact, Dietz has set on Waverly's tail two shooters--anal-retentive, super-slick muscleman D'Marco Fontaine, and D'Marco's ``cross to bear,'' slobby, shlubby apprentice Sigurd Stumpley--whose odd-couple squabblings give the high-energy narrative some of the most inspired dark-slapstick moments this side of Carl Hiaasen. With D'Marco and Sig shadowing his every move, Waverly still manages bittersweetly to romance the unhappily married Caroline and to get her husband to introduce him to some high-rolling businessmen- -portrayed with an acid pen by Kakonis--and to their backer, a card-sharking-and-cheating Arab prince. In a series of high-tension poker marathons, Waverly watches his chance to pay back Dietz-- who's meanwhile flown to Palm Beach to monitor the kill--rise and then fall to nothing--leading to a wild chase-and-shoot in a deserted hotel, and a brutal, high-body-count climax. Naggingly similar in plot to Michigan Roll, but even more inspired in its wry and compassionate portrait of desperate men: any way you cut it, this one comes up aces. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (August 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525933263
• ISBN-13: 978-0525933267
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,769,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars America's finest mystery writer has put his pen to another w, February 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Double Down (Onyx) (Paperback)

Tom Kakonis is perhaps the best mystery writer in America today. Though he has not received one tenth of the acclaim or the attention given to Elmore Leonard, his cast of characters is more colorful and his plots more intriguing. Tom Kakonis is a true artist with respect to the "craft " of writing. As a former bookseller at one of Denver's more renowned bookstores,I recommended Tom Kakonis hundreds of times and always heard gratified thanks from returning customers. Double Down is a top-notch mystery/suspense that will be enjoyed by any reader of James W. Hall, Elmore Leonard, or James Burke

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars helluva writer-great story!!, February 22, 2004

By 

vince martin (brooklyn ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Down (Onyx) (Paperback)

been there and came close to what he writes about, and he knows the feelings -the depression after the all day and night game-the hollowness felt on returning to the other non poker world,even as a winner and the discipline and bile producing tension of the game -the oppressive,stifling heat of south florida the pillsbury man hates so much--the seediness underlying palm beach's supposed grandeur-the people are scary real--they exist! - he must know their prototypes-these can't be whole cloth inventions!--best poker story-let alone novel,i've read to date.he writes with a patience for his characters' thoughts that is fluid and comes only with superior craft and brilliance of exposition-wonderful stuff-not a hack writer and tough to repeat these intensities again and again-where leonard is formulaic kakonis is unique--more gritty and nasty and real -he doesn't use his people for laughs-if there are any they arise naturally from the action--there is that place he writes about and he writes about it better than anyone else-got to get michigan roll since this is the first kakonis book i've read--a find!!

5.0 out of 5 stars Reread - still very good, October 27, 2009

By 

Watson McFestus "Watson McFestus" (Irving Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Double Down (Onyx) (Paperback)

Nice Elmore Leonardesque thriller. The dialogue between the two hitmen (one pro - D'Marco and one thugishy amateurish - Sigurd Stumpley) is a thing of beauty. The Kirkus review got the book just right. The gambler and accidental criminal Waverly has some hard knocks but keeps on surviving.