Winner Take All by James McKimmey

"It would be easy, the man said. But my employer neglected to mention the ending he had in mind. A cold corpse, sprawled in the hot Nevada Sun, wearing my face."

Mark Steele is the transient type, traveling the world as a field engineer after the war, with perhaps serious renegade activities on the side. When he answers a knock on his door, the man on the other side is a blue-eyed blond with a clean-lined face, six feet, 175 pounds. He looks just like Mark.

Thomas Byrd looks identical because he is actually the long-lost brother neither of them knew they had. Byrd grew up wealthy in Beverly Hills, and now faces a dangerous problem; he has lost a hundred grand at roulette in an illegal Las Vegas gambling club. Now, finding out about Mark, he proposes they switch places so Mark can use his skills to talk the debt down with the kingpin he owes. Thomas authorizes a blank check up to sixty thousand; anything left over, Mark can keep. Sounds fishy, but we are already dealing with long-lost identical twin brothers, so don't worry about.

In the high-class carnival of Reno, Mark meets the casino boss for kingpin Nick Nicole and his henchmen. Linda Amory is there as well, looking as fetching as she does on the cover art, radiating a lot of current and seemingly on his side. And it wouldn't be Reno without Julie, the young bottle-blonde whose svelte walk was an unbelievable production—a minx with a heart of ice.

Mark completes the job of impersonation and negotiation, but it's only page 75, and if you think it's that straightforward, you haven't read many pulp novels. The cheque is rubber, the funds are gone, and not only is Nicole after him, but the police are seeking 'Thomas' for murder. Byrd has disappeared, and Mark Steele's identity has been erased, with a new tenant already in his apartment. He's a walking bull's-eye.

This solid, enjoyable thriller had me looking up author McKimmey, hoping for more Mark Steele thrillers. McKimmey wrote several novels but did not continue with Steele. He may have stretched credibility with the twin brother setup, but Reno was just as you like, and the passionate women were both loyal and deadly. The consistent action had a lot of fisticuffs and getting cracked on the head. All around a satisfying read. I was hungry for more.

Winner Take All is paired with McKimmey's The Perfect Victim in a 2018 reprint, easily available in paperback and eBook format.

1959 / Paperback / 160 pages