Alligator Blood: a poor man's Scarface

It's not.

The author manages to devote a whole page to a side trip Daniel's group makes to McDonald's, including a passage that describes the translator helping them with the menu. As though pointing to a picture of a Big Mac is either a) complicated, or b) interesting enough to warrant inclusion in a section where the main characters are trying to escape a war zone.

It is strange that Simon and Shuster would let a book out so clearly in need of a thorough edit. Perhaps they assumed that the demographic of likely readers won't care about the standard of the writing. They may be right. The audience for this will primarily be poker players and fans of underbelly-type true crime, and as such are probably indifferent to clunky writing if the story is good.

The problem is that neither demographic will come away from this satisfied. Poker players will be infuriated that the book goes so soft on Tzvetkoff. The poker playing community is an intelligent one, and informed when it comes to the industry. They'll know that the author skimmed over questions of guilt, they'll be annoyed that he acted like a fanboy when describing Tzvetkoff's extravagances, and pissed that there is no attempt to answer the vexed question of the missing millions of poker player's money.

As to true crime fans – well, white collar crime can only get so interesting. Sure, the cast of characters in Alligator Blood is interesting, but there is no Scarface-like chainsaw-torture-in-the-bathroom scene to make the reading compelling. Just lots of macho posturing, complex financial arrangements (which, to his credit, the author does a good job explaining), and a cameo by Mike Tyson.

The book fails to wrap up any loose ends. Today, Daniel Tzvetkoff is apparently a free man able to afford (after claiming to be broke at one point) accommodation worth up to 7000 dollars a night at an exclusive resort in Bali. Why? We're not told. The author simply says – wink, wink – that "truth is stranger than fiction."

Thanks, but we knew that already. That's why we bought the book: to find out the 'truth' part.

This is a morality tale about greed in which not one of the major players – or the author, for that matter – gives a thought to morality or greed.

Alligator Blood is just like the slots in Vegas: it doesn't pay off.