"When seventh-grader Mitch Sloan moves to Jonasburg, Indiana, he uses his exceptional skills in math, money, and sports statistics to make friends--but gets in over his head when he starts a football betting ring"--

A collection of twenty-two original short crime and mystery stories includes the tales of a gambler who must win at the roulette table to stay alive and a courier who accepts a package with unexpected consequences.

"Her heart pounding beneath the bright lights of London's most fashionable gambling club, Lady Caroline Copeland nervously steps out from behind the curtain. Eyes scanning the crowd, she's drawn to a devilish-looking gentleman glowering at her from the back of the room. The intensity of his gaze burns through her disguise, making her throat dry, her cheeks pink. Caro's gambled her reputation to be here, and can't risk letting anyone close enough to...

An eccentric uncle promises three noble brothers a lavish inheritance, but only if each marries-- thus redeeming-- a fallen woman. Fortune's whim placed Lady Serena Grantley in the control of her gamester stepfather, who uses her to lure men to his gambling tables. Serena dismissed her first love, the Honorable Sebastian Sullivan, at her stepfather's command. But when he attempts to force her into a liaison with a dissolute earl, it is to Sebastian...

The way twelve-year-old Ked Eakins of Norton, Maine, sees it his life has been stolen from him, piece by piece; first by kyphosis, a spinal abnormality which has made him a social outcast at school and a target for the school bully, by his friends who have recently abandoned him, by his mother who left for the West Coast taking the insurance which might have saved him with her, and by his father who is a gambling addict who has lost the rent money--but...

"Vienna Mortenson isn't your typical gambler. She prefers to stay under the radar, using her poker winnings to support her family and her community, including the local search and rescue team, which she heads up. Out in the backcountry there's no time for hesitation when lives are on the line. Vienna prides herself on being tough and decisive. She's not the sort to make a fool of herself over a guy, especially one who left her high and dry without...

Logan Tanner lives the exhilarating life of a professional gambler, taking risks with nerves of steel. From casinos in Macau to Monte Carlo to Milan, he's racked up a fortune and become a living legend. But all the glitz and glamor hide a dark and violent past as an extractor-a world that comes rushing back to him when the beautiful and innocent Lara Balkon enters his life. Soon Logan is drawn into the conflict between two Russian mafia bosses over...