Lucky Devils by Kit Chellel has a lot going for it. Chellel’s writing is quite vibrant, and the fact we keep getting Ocean’s Eleven movies proves we love a good caper. This isn’t a heist book but more of a long-term strategy to make a bunch of money through both legal and maybe not legal means. The problem is that there is no true villain to root against in this one.
The book follows three men who want to figure out how to beat the house. They eventually come into each other’s orbits, but they have their own journeys along the way including wildly different outcomes. Chellel walks through how each of them decide to take on the casinos and does a good job explaining how. The people to whom I would recommend this to would be most interested in this section where each man looks at how computers or other strategies put them in position to win.
The thing keeping this book from being truly great is the lack of a central villain or even some kind of heroic mission. These men just want to beat the house and make money. The closest to an antagonist is a fellow gambler or two but otherwise this is just about the money. I think it takes the narrative back a bit so that the audience for this one is whittled down to people interested in the gambling specifics. Not a bad thing, but something to be aware of.
(This book was provided as an advance reader copy by NetGalley and Atria Books.)
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