I remember a book I read and liked back in my days working as a library page as a teenager. I’d like to read it again, but it must be long out of print because I can’t find it on Amazon, Abebooks, EBay, or Google. I’d think I was misremembering it, except I’m certain I’m not.
The title was “The Mechanic.” I don’t know the author, but it was the story of a young man who rose through the ranks of organized crime in Cuban casinos during the Batista era, using his superior card-manipulation skills. I don’t remember anything else about the plot.
I would have read it probably in the early Eighties, and I don’t think it was new then. Anybody remember it?
BTW, it has nothing to do with the Charles Bronson movie of the same name. In the book, a “mechanic” is a master sleight-of-hand artist, not an assassin.
