The Poker Club [Mass Market Paperback]

Edward Gorman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2000

This huge book contains the original short story upon which THE POKER CLUB was based ("Out There in the Darkness"), the complete novel which was first published in 1999, and the screenplay by Rich Chizmar and Johnathon Schaech. Ed Gorman provides the introduction and you, the reader, get to see the whole story unfold in three ways. It's a classic plot, and one that was meant for Ed Gorman's take-no-prisoners style. Four buddies are playing poker when two burglars break in. One of them is killed and the other wants revenge. What would you do?

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not all short story ideas can be stretched comfortably to fit the frame of a novel, as this tenuous expansion of Gorman's short suspense powerhouse "Out There in the Darkness" proves. The basic plot of the tale (first published as a chapbook in 1996) remains the same: four respectable suburban men learn deadly lessons in personal honesty and civic responsibility when they try covering up their accidental killing of a burglar and outwitting his vengeful accomplice. Gorman (The Day the Music Died) uses the extra elbow room to develop distinct personalities for his protagonists and evoke paranoid fears as their hitherto secure world of middle-class values grows increasingly precarious. Better still, he fleshes out the anonymous and implacable accomplice who stalks them, describing this figure as a suburban nightmare incarnate of "evil, modern evil, urban evil, of eyes that watched in the darkness, watched little children and good mothers, of eyes that coveted money and flesh and life itself." But the novel's first-person narrative limits options for sustaining the pace and pitch of the thrills. Aaron Tyler, the lawyer in whose house the killing occurred, gives muted second-hand accounts of how the experience unhinges the lives of his three friends. His own ordeal of menacing car chases, 4 a.m. phone calls and threats to his family quickly becomes repetitive and predictable. Gorman's lean, resilient prose is tough enough to hold the novel's weak patches and contrived finale together, but it can't disguise the overall thinness.

Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Leisure Books (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0843946830
• ISBN-13: 978-0843946833
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,910,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Sterotype central., June 8, 2000

By 

J. Surowiecki (Hanover Park, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Poker Club (Mass Market Paperback)

To call "The Poker Club" a horror title is a grand misnomer. I totally agree with another reviewer that this really should have been listed as a crime title.

To it's credit "The Poker Club" is a very fast and easy read. What a pity that there was no real payoff by the novel's conclusion.

What suprised me most was Mr. Gorman's use of every ethnic and racial sterotype imaginable. Our hero, Aaron Tyler tells us himself through his clumsy first person narrative that he is the token WASP, Curtis is the token black, Neil is the token Jew and Bill is the token Catholic. Or that's what he'll have you believe that's what they call themselves to one another. Do you know of anyone who would actually talk like that?

The sterotypes don't stop there. We read them when describing the residents of "rough" neighborhoods in Aaron's small Midwestern town and in describing the carnies working at the fair. If as much thought went into the plot as the racial profiling, there might have been a nub of a tale worth telling.

Detective Patterson apparently knows what went down with the men, yet does no real police work to get them to talk. "When you're ready to tell the truth..." "Stop lying to me..." make up a major portion of her speaking lines. Any police officer out there reading this novel would be insulted by her poor procedural tactics.

Aaron and his friends are supposed neighborhood saints turned sinners. There is nothing redeeming or memorable about any of these men. I half-expected these dreaded six words after the final sentence . . . "And we lived happily ever after." That's the sort of feel the novel has by the end.

There are plenty of other good novels out there that will, no doubt, entertain you more. Leave this one on the shelf.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Eerie & Palpable, February 27, 2000

By 

Jason Birkby - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poker Club (Mass Market Paperback)

I was a little leery of this novel at the start. I purchased this not knowing that Ed Gorman's genre was horror, which is not what I normally read. I was quite pleased that Gorman keeps any supernatural element out, and kept the horror to more true to life issues. The novel reads like a thriller, but with the "It could happen to you" element the story line was very scary.

The story like the title is based on a four man poker club, Who encounter a burglar one night during a card playing session. All four members have a different idea what to do and before they can go to the police the burglar is killed trying to get away. This starts the ball rolling and it does not stop till the book comes to an end. The main character Aaron Tyler trys to set examples, of what they should do but will the others listen. The club also knows that there is a second burglar, and when the second buglar starts stalking them the action is wonderful.

This novel reminded me about Scott Smith's "A Simple Plan". The element of should we go to the police or is it too late. The characters are nice mix and the setting of nice suburbia and the burglar's home in the worst part of the city is a nice public issue piece. The ending was a little bit predictable, however the ride to get there was pure enjoyment.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rehashing older stories doth not a novel make, March 22, 2000

By 

Dana Minyard "dmin" (Starkville, MS USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poker Club (Mass Market Paperback)

I find Ed Gorman a good, steady read, but if you have read "Out There In The Darkness", a novella, you have already read this story. Although a good story, I have to rate this one low because I dislike buying what I think are new novels, only to find that it is a rehash of an earlier work. Shame on you, Gorman.