Tumblin' Dice

Say now baby I’m the rank outsider, you can be my partner in crime. Casinos, mobsters, bikers, hookers, drug dealers, crooked cops and rock ’n’ roll. You can roll me, call me the Tumblin’ Dice.

The High had a couple of hit songs in the late ’70s and now they’re back together playing the nostalgia circuit at casinos, opening for Grand Funk or Cheap Trick or Peter Frampton. And the bass player, Barry, and the lead singer, Cliff, have found a way to really make the tour worthwhile — they’re robbing the drug dealers and the shylocks that work every casino.

At the Huron Woods casino, The High find their old manager, Frank Kloss, is now the entertainment director and they decide to go for one big score and get the millions he swindled from them years ago. Or was that the plan all along?

What wasn’t part of the plan was the mob war The High land in the middle of as Frank is trying to partner up with the newly powerful Saints of Hell bikers to drive out the Philadelphia mobsters who’ve been running all the loan sharking, drugs, and prostitution at the casino.

Many of the characters from McFetridge’s other books in the Toronto Series appear inTumblin’ Dice, including the cops Loewen, McKeon, Price, and Armstrong as well as many of the bad guys including Nugs, JT, Danny Mac, and his wife Gayle who comes to the story in a much larger role.