Cranston Public Library

At Mississippi's Tishomingo Lodge & Casino, performing high-diver Dennis Lenahan witnesses a mob murder. Meanwhile, Dennis's friend, Detroit con man Robert Johnson, seems to have an elaborate scheme up his sleeve -- a scheme that involves Dennis, the mob, and an upcoming Civil War battle reenactment that promises to throw the Lodge into a tizzy.

Narrated by the character Alexei, who is addicted to gambling, this short novel is based on Dostoevsky's own experiences as a compulsive gambler. Like so many characters in Dostoevsky's novels, Alexei is trying to break through the wall of the established order and the human condition itself but instead he is drawn into the vortex of the roulette wheel.

"Handsome, impeccably tuxedoed Bruno Alexander travels the world winning large sums of money from amateur "whales" who think they can challenge his peerless acumen at backgammon. Fronted by his pasty, vampiric manager, Edgar Falk, Bruno arrives in Berlin after a troubling run of bad luck in Singapore. Perhaps it was the chance encounter with his crass childhood acquaintance Keith Stolarsky and his smoldering girlfriend Tira Harpaz. Or perhaps it was...

Reviewers have called it "powerful" and "brilliant." Newly released for its 25th anniversary edition, Jack Engelhard's novel Indecent Proposal has found its place alongside such classics as Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Indecent Proposal remains one of the most widely-read and discussed novels around the world, due to the strong writing and riches that include a moral dilemma for the ages. The novel was translated into

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"To solve Rhode Island's budget crisis, the state's colorful governor, Attila the Nun, wants to legalize sports gambling; but her plan has unexpected consequences. Organized crime, professional sports leagues, and others who have a lot to lose--or gain--if gambling is made legal flood the state with money to buy the votes of state legislators. Liam Mulligan, investigative reporter for The Providence Dispatch, wants to investigate, but his bottom-feeding...

Former Marine pilot Jack Morgan runs Private, a prestigious investigation company. But the world's darkest secrets can only stay private for so long . . .
Private: it's where you go when you need maximum force and maximum discretion. The secrets of the most influential men and women on the planet come to Jack daily-and his staff of investigators uses the world's most advanced forensic tools to make and break their cases.
Jack is already...

The young Frenchman did very well what he had planned to do. His guess that the Duke would cheat proved good. As the unshod half-dozen figures that had been standing noiselessly in the entryway stole softly into the shadows of the chamber, he leaned across the table and smilingly plucked a card out of the big Englishman's sleeve.

"Two weeks before his twenty-first birthday, Las Vegas native Bobby Ingersoll finds out he's inherited a crushing gambling debt from his scumbag father. The debt is owed to an even scummier bag named Fraser Ruphart who oversees his bottom-rung criminal empire from the classy-adjacent Trump International Hotel. Bobby's prospects of paying off the note, which comes due the day he turns twenty-one, are about as dim as the sign on the tower's façade....