The gambling Man [Mass Market Paperback]

Catherine Cookson (Author)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 307 pages
• Publisher: Corgi; 1st Paperback Printing edition (1977)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553027492
• ISBN-13: 978-0553027495
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,392,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master.

Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many best-selling novels established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists.

After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997.

For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Just Cookin', January 3, 2000

By 

Antonio Sacin (Panama City Beach, FL, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gambling Man (Paperback)

This book begins in a very poor district of a city in England during the Industrial Revolution. The division between classes is very notorious. I have to admit that I found myself struggling for the first 100 pages or so, but then afterwards I was hooked. I am not to unveil the main trama but this is the story of a man that fights his way up the slums (with some help) and at this point the author provides us with many surprises, up until the end of the book. Things that had been building up in the 100 previous pages finally start falling together in a carefully laid out fashion, and a very romantic way. The feelings are intense.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Catherine Cookson cooks with THE GAMBLING MAN, February 3, 2008

By 

Stori Diva "Stori Gurl" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The gambling man (Paperback)

Rory Connor is a gambling man plain and simple. Born into a poor family, even his mum knows that someday he will make something of himself. He collects rents from the local habitants for the local gentry. The patriarch dies, leaving his plain, spinster daughter to carry on the family business.

Rory is pressed to find gambling games that will afford him more cash in order to buy a house for his upcoming marriage and a small business venture for his brother. Rory pilfers a small amount of cash to enter a fixed game with the Pitte brothers, a local gang. A mistake that cost him Rory his conscious as a close friend goes to jail for a year for thievery Rory committed. He manages to win a large amount of money but is badly beaten and left for dead.

While recuperating he is visited by his fiancé and also Charlotte Kean, the lady of the manor. It's easy to see that she is smitten with him and continues to engage him in his rent collector's role.

He marries his intended but is plagued with guilt over his misdeed and confesses during a nightmare. His new wife is furious at what he's done and leaves him to return to her family. She is then commissioned by the mistress she works for to accompany their family on sea voyage, where they are all lost at sea. While mourning is loss, a year goes by and Rory is promoted to bookkeeping by Charlotte.

Finally no longer able to contain her affections for Rory, Charlotte makes propositions him with an offer of marriage--in name only. He will not be required to fill his marital duties and will in fact reside in his own apartments.
Rory of course makes her his wife in every way, giving her a happiness that she could only dream of.

Charlotte has been busy collecting evidence against the Pitte brothers and a crew of malcontents that plague the docks, and in fact were responsible for beating Rory and other crimes against the local humanity.

Though everyone is whispering about Rory's marriage to Charlotte, he finds himself falling in love with his plain, gentle wife. She informs him that she is with child, and he is beyond happy--until he learns that his first wife has returned, a shell of her former beautiful self, and bitter when she finds out that he has remarried.
She threatens to expose him even as Rory declares to her that he loves his new wife and that she is expecting.

The Pitte brother's burn Rory's brother's business and redemption is satisfied when Rory enters the burning building to save him. With his body on fire, he manages to save his sibling, but incurs fatal burns and survives long enough to declare his love once more to charlotte.

Catherine Cooks tells stories the way we author's today are no longer allowed to. Always filled with passion, and redemption, Catherine always showed the cruelty as well as the beauty in the lives of those who weren't always rich and powerful. Her stories includes their downfall, as well as their redeeming qualities. As with most of her books, I highly recommend THE GAMBLING MAN.