Dangerous Odds: My Secret Life Inside An Illegal Billion Dollar Sports Betting Operation

Even without the author’s “disclaimer” that this account of her decade on the wrong side of the law is “recreated,” savvy readers will suspect that a good chunk of the details of this memoir may not be strictly accurate. Lankester used her “memories, journals, photos and extensive research,” but none of those sources are likely to have provided descriptive color such as the name of the song playing at a particular moment 20 years ago. Even less-skeptical readers will find this a bloated account. In 1986, Lankester moved to Los Angeles for work, but the part-time receptionist position she found turned out to be something quite different; and that introduction to the numbers racket snowballed. Lankester ends up marrying her boss, a development that will not surprise after her torrid descriptions of their lovemaking (“As he began to kiss the nape of my neck, his lips slowly traveling down my naked body, I silently thanked every woman Tony had ever made love to.”) She ends up getting more involved in the operation, and becoming a target of law-enforcement herself. In addition to the book’s recreated elements, readers will likely find the sloppy writing problematic. Agent: Adriano Viganò, Werder-Viganò. (May)