The Bookworm Gambler’s Digest: No House Limit

No House Limit will become one of your favorite books based on gambling, I guarantee it.

The book was first published in 1958 and is full of phrases that we would expect. At the same time, however, this predictability

• Joe refuses the Syndicate
• Mal falls in love
• Sprig keeps peace at the joint

makes us love it even more. Long before the time of mobile casinos, this book is about real action in old casinos and characters like Joe, who fits into this vibe so perfectly, someone living in 2015 would never be able to replicate. This gruff, raw, but honest hero immediately became one of my favorite book protagonists.

“Joe, I didn’t mean the way it sounded!”
“Mean what?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you!”
“Nobody hurts me.”
This is the part, which describes Joe exactly the way he is. Crude, man-like, who cannot be hurt by some petty comment to run home, pouting. He fits perfectly into the tough-guy-from-the-1950s archetype. Joe was a fantastic craps player, and runs his own luxury casino, but the Syndicate wants him to leave because he refused to pay them protection money. To achieve this, they send in Bello, a pro gambler to win away everything that Joe owns.

Mal, the piano player

The storyline continues on another thread and shows Mal’s perspective. His person could mostly be described by the atmosphere in an underground US poker room: the silence of the players and the despair of those losing. He’s a singer and a piano player, who wishes for a grandiose life where he can at last become famous. For the time being, though, he plays in Joe’s casino in the hopes that someone will discover his talents. He meets many people during his time in the casino and one day, he lays eyes on Dee. The complication with Dee is the fact that she is Bello’s girlfriend.

Dee enjoys a comfortable life thanks to Bello’s winnings, with lavish meals and beautiful jewelry, but as soon as she gets to know Mal, she wants to leave Bello. As a romance starts to bud between Dee and Mal, tensions starts building. They have many secret meetings and fear that they will be found out. The adventure of this thread is irresistible. The suspense build-up in the book is just amazing; Steve Fischer has mastered this to a level of wizardry. It is wonderful to see a writer be capable of completely transforming his voice through each character, from a rough man’s man, to a more delicate soul in love.

Sprig, the head of security

He is the ultimate badass security guy. It is insinuated in the book that he used to be in the FBI or some other law enforcement agency. We don’t really know, but one thing is true: he is great at tactical multitasking. He makes unreliable and cheating employees never want to be bad again, somehow he can always guess if some foul play is going. Once, he even finds counterfeit chips. And now, for scene that shows us just how indestructibly awesome he is: he beats a hitman half to death. Twist: the hitman is sent to kill him. Oh, the joys of reading Steve Fischer! This book is the perfect read once you’ve gotten tired playing on mobile betting sites. He, however, is more like a satellite character is the overall scale of things.

The storyline and the whole entanglement between characters, the budding romances of Joe and Mal all attest to the fact that Steve Fisher is a wonderful writer. Reading the book, you can find yourself getting as nervous as Joe who is always keeping an eye on the person sent to take all of his fortune, or as shaky as Mal when he plans his secret rendezvous with Dee. When studying Sprig’s take, you’ll simply think, “wow. Just, wow.” All in all, it’s a great light read filled with 1950s bad guys and women who want to leave “the life.” You’ll love it.