PARADISE ROAD

by David Scott Milton ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 1974

Roughly the same idea (if lots less likable) as Sam Ross' The Fortune Machine (1970) in which another man with a System hopes to beat the law of the green felt jungle. Don Porter had learned the System -- originally that of a famous gambler, Billy Ray Walker, in the slammer and it obsesses him -- far more than the willing charms of Kitty, whom he takes with him to Vegas, and later Yolande, the wife of one of the power brokers out there. But the one-deck System is fallible -- so is the later four-deck System Billy Ray has developed since then -- and in the end they're all losers (Kitty who earns her way at fifty dollars a throw; Eddie the twitchy boxer who becomes their friend before he's permanently incapacitated; Billy Ray who drops dead -- and deserves to). Porter's a pretty morose type and as cold as one of those slot machine lobbies but you'll read it for the kind of action it hustles with sweaty palms. (The film which will be made by Pollack of They Shoot Horses, Don't They may better effect the panatela pall of the pool room or Caesar's Palace at dawn.)

Pub Date: April 15, 1974

ISBN: 0595454976

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories: FICTION