Review: Pushing his luck, a gripping read
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 6, 2013
This is a gripping read. The luckiest man in the world who had grown up in foster care and then spent a few years homeless, began in his late teens an astonishing string of luck--lotteries, real estate and other investments, lush royalties from several autobiographies by the time he turned thirty-one. In the opening scene, he dreams of a fairy smoking Cuban cigars and his beautiful ex, waking up as she disappears; he complains with a typical wise-crack, "she didn't even stay for coffee."His current girlfriend, a rockstar-goddess, urges him to do something serious in his life. He is, he replies, set to challenge the fates, to test his "invincible luck." This leads to a series of highly readable, action-packed incidents as he faces a cabal of billionaires, the bounty-hunters their plot of revenge spawns and some random but truly sociopathic types. He discovers in himself grit and a drug-enhanced ability to withstand pain.There is true inventiveness in the many harrowing trials and escapes, and the writing is mostly serviceable. But there are also inexplicable typos and jarring words--""the smell of tobacco was prominent," his final lawsuit "illustrious," and "slalomed" seemed a favorite verb. These distract from an otherwise good thriller.Deserves three and a half stars.