H. Lee Barnes, author of Cold Deck

Jude Helms is a Las Vegas casino dealer who barely survived the deadly MGM fire in 1980. More than two decades later, he’s still dealing, a tired, middle-aged man, divorced, struggling with debt, and trying to be a good father to his children. Then he loses his job and his car is totaled in an accident. When an attractive woman friend offers to help him get another job, Jude is happy to go along. Gradually, he realizes that his new job is part of an elaborate scheme to cheat a casino and that his own fate and that of his children depend on his finding the courage and ingenuity to extricate himself.

Cold Deck is the exciting story of an ordinary man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances. Moving from Las Vegas’s mean streets to the insider’s world of casino workers, this is a story of survival set against the greed, fears, and glitz of Sin City.

Find out more about H. Lee Barnes, and listen to the program, on the radio or online.

• Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 p.m. on Montana Public Radio
• Thursday, April 4 at 6:30 p.m. on Yellowstone Public Radio
• Sunday, April 7 at 3 p.m. on KSJD 
• Sunday, April 7 at 6 p.m. on Spokane Public Radio
• On demand audio
• MTPR podcast