Ace High: A Cold Poker Gang Novel

Cold Poker Gang #7

by Dean Wesley Smith

1991. The famous Las Vegas hotel The Landmark scheduled for destruction. A girl's body found in one of the old rooms. Impossible to even tell her identity or what happened to her. Seventeen years later Cold Poker Gang members Pickett and Sarge take up the girl's long-cold case. And layer by layer they uncover one of the most twisted crimes in the history of the famous sin city. A crime that still needs to be covered up with even more death. Ace High wins the award for the most twisted crime novel yet in the series of Cold Poker Gang novels. If you love great mystery books, grab this one. ..".Dean Wesley Smith draws a royal straight flush by making the hand he deals readers seem possible with this exhilarating political poker thriller..." -Midwest Book Review on Dead Money

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 26, 2017

About the author

Pen Names
Edward Taft
Dee W. Schofield
Sandy Schofield
Kathryn Wesley

Dean Wesley Smith is the bestselling author of over ninety novels under many names and well over 100 published short stories. He has over eight million copies of his books in print and has books published in nine different countries. He has written many original novels in science fiction, fantasy, mystery, thriller, and romance as well as books for television, movies, games, and comics. He is also known for writing quality work very quickly and has written a large number of novels as a ghost writer or under house names.

With Kristine Kathryn Rusch, he is the coauthor of The Tenth Planet trilogy and The 10th Kingdom. The following is a list of novels under the Dean Wesley Smith name, plus a number of pen names that are open knowledge. Many ghost and pen name books are not on this list because he is under contractual obligations not to disclose that he wrote them. Many of Dean’s original novels are also under hidden pen names for marketing reasons.

Dean has also written books and comics for all three major comic book companies, Marvel, DC, and Dark Horse, and has done scripts for Hollywood. One movie was actually made.

Over his career he has also been an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books.

Currently, he is writing thrillers and mystery novels under another name.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this because I was curious about how an author could manage to write so many reasonably decent books within a career of finite years. The answer that quickly became apparent: he can't. Let's be forgiving and neglect the brutal typos and grammatical errors. On a plot level, this book is painfully disorganized to the point where it feels like the author is lost, and, as a reader, you want to reach out and lend a hand. It's pathetic. On a prose level, it is sickening. The style cannot be discussed, because there isn't one, unless you are willing to call standalone-paragraphs-that-start-with-"And," or the repeated mention of bread pudding, a style. This is the worst of the worst, and I can't believe I paid $6 for this.

(However, I also read the author's "books" on writing. I use the sarcasm quotes because they are really glorified blog posts. It is worth pointing out that the author's writing philosophy is useful in highlighting the value of productivity. The worst writer is still more productive than the non-writer. In that, I do commend his ability to be forthright. But I also think that, now that he is more than a hundred novels in, he should slightly reevaluate his goals.)

[Yvette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this series! I wish there were more books!