Random Things Tours: Gambling Wives by Katharina Mayer

 

Three friends, a well-hidden secret. Meet Hannah, Laura and Val, all of them living a relatively quiet life in the Austrian village of Nickelsdorf - like the author, Katarina Mayer, herself. They had to leave behind successful careers after getting married. But they found each other and together, like 3 brave women musketeers, they are filling their time before and after preparing lunches for children or husbands, with gambling. A very lucrative endeavour, if you´ll ask me.

Gambling Wives is their story. How they succeeded to build a secret life by pretending and deceiving, while creating a safe world where they may be feared and fearful. If asked where and especially why do they have to travel so often alone, they have the cover story of being the successful representatives of a cosmetics company. But randomly, one can meet them in Vegas, as in Las Vegas. Those poker skills can be very useful in the everyday life as well.

And all went well until it doesn´t and during their escape for taking part to a poker tournament, there are dramatic things going on, involving a casino manager, an old lover, or two and a crime. As they are supposed to return to their village soon, the culprit should be found out fast, and this urgency to fit into the plan may have been hurried up a bit the last part of the story. It starts relatively slowly and most of the book is an introduction to their livestyle and personal love and life stories. The speed occuring towards the end makes sense but can be a bit deceiving as the reader may feel forced to arrive to the finish line.

However, this disbalance in the story telling is instantly forgotten when the reader is faced with the ending. It was worth hurrying up, believe me.

Besides the action and the thrill, Gambling Wives is also a book about women friendships and betrayal, honesty and how easy it is to breach the trust and the blessing of becoming happy with one´s lot. How friendships can resist the test of betrayal and what really matters in the end.

As someone who considers The Player by Dostoevsky as an important reference when it comes to gambling of any kind and may happen to have a (non-)addictive experience of casinos I was expecting more insights and character features to reflect those aspects. But the story of the Gambling Wives is rounded up and entincing and actually I may write soon about the continuation of the three friends story. At the end of the book, they become so real that, in fact, I cannot wait to follow their adventures, from Nickelsdorf abroad.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own