A taut thriller featuring a flawed but endearing antihero.
Eddie O’Connell has really botched things this time. An exacting mob is unwilling to forgive his huge gambling debt, so to settle things Eddie has no choice but to travel to Denver and go undercover to find a killer. An old acquaintance named Zany was tortured and tossed over the edge of a four story stadium in a flashy and attention grabbing crime of passion. With an uncle who used to be a homicide detective, Eddie has a good idea of how to go about finding the murderer, but pretending to manage Zany’s business is another matter. Of course the assignment is dangerous, but failure is not an option so he takes a capable assistant into his confidence. As Eddie gets closer to the truth, the mob won’t be the only ones breathing down his neck. And more than his life is on the line.
Wager Tough is a taut thriller featuring a tortured but endearing antihero. The action begins as Eddie is snooping around the scene of a grisly and sinister crime. The details are gruesome but meaningful, building to an important plot point. With all the marks of a hard-boiled detective story, the clipped dialogue and frenetic pace make for an engrossing mystery. With so many slimy characters, Farrell does a great job at giving each one a distinctive and unique voice, making it easy to keep up with the whirlwind story. If you’re looking for a new character to root for, Eddie O’Connell is hard not to like in Wager Tough.
