Gambler's Rose

Cheating at poker may be a risky business, but Hawkes shows it's even trickier to play straight in this story of a father and two sons, card sharps all. Building his tale around a series of suspenseful poker games, Hawkes (Surveyor) captures the lexicon and atmosphere of the world of professional gambling, where the twitch of an eye, or the positioning of one's body at the card table supply more information than the uninitiated could ever imagine. It is 1971, and after an exchange of cryptic notes, family patriarch Music Halloran and his sons, Charlie and Reggie, meet in Honolulu. Music has won a beautiful sailing vessel and has set up a mark he wants to fleece in a high-stakes game at sea. The mark, a perfume manufacturer named Vince Arthur, is accompanied by his daughter, Bobbie, who immediately seduces Reggie, and a professional gambler whom Arthur has hired to keep the Hallorans honest. Meanwhile, Charlie is having doubts about the family profession, and when he falls in love with math professor Lia O'Donel back on shore, his anxieties are compounded. Another high-stakes bet may give him the means to exit the game, but the question is whether he really wants out. Hawkes's setup is dynamite, and his prose is sharp and clean. But after the novel's promising beginning, with each Halloran going his own way, the story begins to lose focus. There is a scheme to sink the sailing boat; there are long-unresolved issues among the three Hallorans, dark secrets that are forced to the forefront as the boys cope with the possibilities of settling down. Hawkes may strive too hard for profundity at times, overloading his gambling metaphors, but the force and wily integrity of the tale ultimately win out. (Mar.)