Books: Lady Luck

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IT ONLY HURTS A Ml UTE by Don M. Mankicewicz. 312 pages. Putnam. $5.95.

As he stands shaving himself on his 40th birthday, Lew White has to acknowledge the fact that he is strictly a tinhorn. He has been many things in his life—honor student, salesman, husband —but the only thing Lew has ever been full time is a compulsive gambler. Somewhere along the line he has lost his nerve. Now he is only a house player for a California casino, holding cards and shooting craps for hourly wages.

But one predawn morning a golden hussy named Lisa Fortune comes gliding into Lew's life, holding a double-ace flush (with a joker for the second ace) for a fat pot. This Fortune dame smiles on Lew, invites him into her white Cadillac and her wide bed, and even gives him tantalizing glimpses into her cool brain, which calculates odds as effortlessly as a parimutuel machine. Suddenly,, Lew can't lose for winning. On a single long weekend, he parlays a $130 grubstake into a fat $60,000 and ends up in Las Vegas trying to break the bank.

Out of this flimsy little fable, Author Mankiewicz (See How They Run, Trial) has made a surprisingly believable and engrossing tale. He also describes in detail every conceivable game of chance, from blackjack to jai alai, from dime-ante poker to horse racing, which will either bore or fascinate the reader depending on his capacity for instruction.