The Great California Game

The Great California Game

While bartending at an elegant dinner party, Lovejoy reveals his knowledge of antiques and is drawn into an illegal antiques scam involving extortion, a protection racket, con artists, and beautiful women The irrepressible Lovejoy takes America by storm in this sequel to The Jade Woman ( LJ 2/1/89). Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. Still struggling to reclaim the magnificent form of Jade Woman (1989), in which incorrigibly corrupt antiques-dealer Lovejoy nosed about Hong Kong, Gash now turns to America for inspiration--with only so-so results. Eking out a livelihood in a Manhattan bar, Lovejoy is pressed into waiter service at the wealthy, more-than- slightly-crooked Aquilinas digs, where his ``divvy'' (i.e., divining) talents gain him entry into The Great California Game--an invitation-only, giant hustle that's guaranteed to make the winners multimillionaires. Quicker than he can tell paste from diamond, Lovejoy and his two new street-savvy chums--Magda the doorway whore and Zole the hot-goods kid--are on a cross-country romp (Chicago, New Orleans, L.A.) to set up the sting, while all around them love stories swirl and evolve (the maid/the bodyguard/etc.), two sisters crop up, and, naturally, the big score just seems to elude Lovejoy. A skimpy plot undercuts a wry love-letter to the States. As witty and knowledgeable as Gash can be, he hasn't much of a story to tell here. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.