Chasing the Ace (Nicholas J Johnson, S&S)

Nicolas J Johnson is a talented entertainer whose knowledge of scams, swindles and sleight-of-hand has earned him the appellation of ‘Australia’s Honest Con Man’. His debut novel is the first part of a two-book deal. Both will centre on a pair of Melbourne mountebanks, odd couple Richard and Joel. Richard is the august old hand with a romanticised view of his ‘art’ and Joel is the eager young greenhorn, reared on a diet of slick Hollywood caper flicks and oblivious to the moral cleft sticks of the game. Chasing the Ace details their meeting and Joel’s education, both as a confidence artist and, ultimately, as a young man. This takes place against the genre’s requisite backdrops—a casino, a brothel—with a climax amid a raging bushfire in rural Victoria, introducing a welcome instance of regional idiosyncrasy. Johnson’s passion for this world is obvious throughout, with Richard and Joel’s ingenious gambits being the book’s biggest strengths, along with the bait-and-switch plotting. However, there’s no escaping how the book reads like its own schematic, lacking in style what it has in narrative wiliness. A telescript might have better served these characters, and another Richard and Joel novel seems like Johnson may be pushing his luck.

Gerard Elson is a writer and bookseller who works at Readings St Kilda

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Category: Reviews