Val Durrant was just a child when he began his education at the side of a gambler named Will Reilly. From Colorado boomtowns to seedy Texas saloons to the streets of Europe and back, it was a school of cards, poetry, violence, honor, and luck. But outside a fancy Colorado hotel, Reilly's luck ran out in a blazing roar of gunfire. Val will have to heed every lesson the gambler ever taught him if he's to bring in the ruthless gunmen who brought Will Reilly down.