Rolling the bones

"Carl Stein, a longtime con man, moves in on Venus and Carl Blalock, an unsuspecting couple in a small Texas town. While the two couples are on a summer picnic Stein's wife, May, who had become close friends with Venus, drowns, suddenly sucked into a cistern at the bottom of a manmade lake. But May's death doesn't stop Stein from stealing thousands of dollars from the Blalocks and promptly disappearing. Similarly, Venus and Blalock's lives are set spinning off in wild directions.".

"Venus and the two Carls tell a fast-paced story, relay style, as each runs away from the other and from the here and now - fleeing across parched Texas, to the homey, sleazy casinos of Louisana, and down into the extreme poverty, brilliant sunshine, and dazzling blue waters of Mexico's Pacific coast. The three roll through lives of road travel, motel living, casino miracles, alcoholism, and ever more thievery."--BOOK JACKET.