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A Jackson Oliver Mystery #1
This Isn't a Game
A smart debut sends Jackson Oliver, head of online gambling casino VegasVegas, headquartered in San Jose, Costa Rica, to a New England village where he suspects someone has gotten away with murder―and used VegasVegas as part of the clever con. Jackson not only feels like a chump for accepting a bet that will cost VegasVegas a hundred grand, he's exposed the casino to blacklisting by the Offshore Gaming Association, which could ruin it. How did this happen? It's a celebrity-obsessed age. VegasVegas posts novelty propositions so its customers can bet on the outcome of TV shows like The Voice and The Bachelorette , and on political elections and celebrity murder trials. VegasVegas customers don't want to bet on speeding tickets or misdemeanor theft. They're star-obsessed. Athlete, musician, actor, socialite―the more the victim or alleged perpetrator shows up on TMZ , the more money bettors fork out. So VegasVegas offered odds on various outcomes in the trial of a movie director accused of murdering his wife. The trial comes fourteen months after Andrew Marvel's arrest, and conviction seems certain. When a customer bets $1,000 that all charges will be dropped―an outcome so unlikely that the odds are 100 to 1―Jackson takes the bet. Audrey Marvel was killed in the couple's lakeside summer home in Greensboro, Vermont. Audrey's blood was all over Andrew's clothes, which the police found at the bottom of the lake. Andrew's wild account that he'd been drugged with Doxepin and hijacked sounds like it was ghostwritten by the prosecutor. Yet two days after the bet made at VegasVegas, an unshakable video alibi for Andrew surfaces, proving the director was three hours away at the time of Audrey's murder. And all charges are dropped. Jackson suspects the bettor, a Greensboro resident, had inside information―or worse―making the bet fraudulent and letting VegasVegas off the hook. With no time to lose proving his theory, Jackson hops a plane to Vermont. There, working undercover, he begins to investigate the Marvel murder. A ring of antique weathervane thieves and an attractive crime blogger with movie scripts in her past figure in. This Isn't a Game starts a series where Jackson will explore both crimes and new career trajectories.
240 pages, Paperback
Published October 4, 2016
1 person is currently reading
432 people want to read
About the author
David Moss
61Ìýbooks11ÌýfollowersDavid Moss is an advertising copywriter who has worked for many national agencies. After writing for every conceivable medium, from TV and radio to coffee cup sleeves and menu tray liners, he moved on to screenplays and novels. His script, Saving Flora, about a circus elephant, is in development to be filmed in Puebla, Mexico, in 2017. This isn’t a Game is his first novel. David lives in Santa Monica, California.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 17, 2019
I padded the score by a star because i could not finish and i feel badly about it. Oddly slow-moving for a book of its size. The writing seemed odd in that is spent time on things that didn't really matter much to the story but no time at all on The characters, including The main one you follow. They don't feel like real people and the book felt like it dragged despite it being centered around a mystery. The lack of any form of believability was really the final straw where I decided to move on. Might have made a better movie.
January 10, 2019
I won this in the good reads giveaway! David Moss entertained me and provided a fresh story. Awesome read!
November 19, 2016
I didn’t quite know what to make of this book. On the one hand, there’s quite a good story in there that twists and turns, with an interesting setting in a small town in Vermont and some quirky characters.
But for me, the characterization and descriptive elements were really thin. The book is comprised largely of dialogue with lots of quick/witty/smart assed one liners (does everybody go around speaking like that?). I felt that I didn’t get to know any of the main protagonists, particularly Jackson who the book is centered around:-what they looked like, what type of person they were, their backgrounds, interests and motivations, what sort of relationships they had, etc.
Not a bad book, a bit hard going but I might still look for the promised sequel to see how the character of Jackson Oliver develops.
But for me, the characterization and descriptive elements were really thin. The book is comprised largely of dialogue with lots of quick/witty/smart assed one liners (does everybody go around speaking like that?). I felt that I didn’t get to know any of the main protagonists, particularly Jackson who the book is centered around:-what they looked like, what type of person they were, their backgrounds, interests and motivations, what sort of relationships they had, etc.
Not a bad book, a bit hard going but I might still look for the promised sequel to see how the character of Jackson Oliver develops.
December 17, 2016
I like this book, the premise, the antiques, the characters, the settings. The main character, Jackson Oliver owns an online betting casino in Costa Rica. That could lend itself to future stories. He's a vegan and I was concerned that the book would turn preachy, but it never did. The only thing I didn't like was the blow=by=blow description of the fight scene. (This right-handed jab landed here, etc. etc.) That's just me. I want thank David Moss and Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for making this this book available to me. Where does Jackson go next?
December 13, 2016
This was a fun, easy to read book.
The mystery at the heart of the book was very compelling and kept pulling me along. The book is very focused on the mystery though, there is an interesting cast of characters here and it might have been fun to explore them a bit more, but this book doesn't veer far from it's central whodunit question. But there is a lot going on there and it unfolds slowly and very satisfying.
The mystery at the heart of the book was very compelling and kept pulling me along. The book is very focused on the mystery though, there is an interesting cast of characters here and it might have been fun to explore them a bit more, but this book doesn't veer far from it's central whodunit question. But there is a lot going on there and it unfolds slowly and very satisfying.
July 4, 2018
Different type of mystery situation involving online gaming a possible fraud. Interesting twist./ partially set in Costa Rica
May 7, 2017
Incredibly interesting premise for murder (off shore bet on an unlikely event) but virtually unreadable exposition. Needs work! DPL book
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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