Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich

Bringing Down the House by Ben mezrich is just one of those books; when you read the first few pages, you get hooked. It starts with Kevin, the main character, in a casino playing blackjack. He looks for his spotter and catches a signal. The spotter puts her hand through her hair, and this means one thing: get out of the casino, and fast. The book soon slows down, and starts at the beginning. After he gives all the background knowledge, Mezrich gets into all kinds of different plots and subplots. The main plot is obviously, how long they can last in Vegas without being caught, but a very intriguing subplot is the constant brewing of anger among kevin against Fisher and Martinez. Mezrich smoothly transfers his writing from an exciting win of $10,000, to a club at the Palms. It's this smooth writing style that makes the book seem so life-like. Mezrich portrays himself in the book and one of Kevin's friends and just wanting to get information to write this book. As he pops in every few chapters, all the people he interviewed thought his research was to write another card-counting book. It was, but not as they expected. I believe this part of the book is important because it shows how Mezrich tried to create a different book. He not only made the book entertaining, but he showed the reality of it. He showed that you should never dig yourself too deep, and that even the best get taken down. There was a slight weakness to the book. The book is repetitive. Usually a little repetitiveness is good; this just had a little too much. Overall it was a brilliantly written, twisty plotted book.