Living Time: Poker Boy, #17

By Dean Wesley Smith

In a casino in Oregon, Poker Boy beats a man fair-and-square at the poker table while a stranger watches, a stranger who knows too much about Poker Boy and his job.

It turns out that much of Poker Boy’s future rested on that one hand of cards.

A classic Poker Boy story with true heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WMG Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536584561

Dean Wesley Smith

Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series. For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

Book preview

In a casino in Oregon, Poker Boy beats a man fair-and-square at the poker table while a stranger watches, a stranger who knows too much about Poker Boy and his job.

It turns out that much of Poker Boy’s future rested on that one hand of cards.

A classic Poker Boy story with true heart.

CHAPTER ONE

I SAT UNDER the gaze of some idiot who had watched too much poker on television as he stared at me like he knew what he was doing. I have no idea what he was looking for, and I had no doubt he didn’t know either, but he kept it up, trying to decide if he should toss in his last two hundred bucks and call my bet.

He had on a heavy wool sweater and had taped one side of his glasses with white tape. The longer he stared at me, the more he sweated. He was in the third chair and I was in the sixth. The two men between us had both scooted their chairs back to stay out of the way of the showdown.

Around us the Spirit Winds Casino poker room was doing a good business for ten o’clock on a Thursday night in the middle of January. Five tables