"In 1888 in Victoria, Texas, for a simple job, a Chicago private eye gets caught up in much darker affairs and ends up in the poker game to end all poker games"-- Provided by publisher

1888, Victoria, Texas. Shannon, a Chicago private detective, returns home to Galveston, Texas for a wedding. Galveston's new rabbi asks Shannon to find Nathan Silverberg, gone missing along with a group of swindlers who claim to be soliciting money for a future colony of Romanian Jewish refugees. Shannon's investigations lead him to a malevolent white-haired gambler, monstrous sand dune totems, and a group of skull-headed poker players trapped in an endless loop of cards and alcohol-- and may be his only means to survive the business. -- adapted from back cover