What do you think?
Rate this book
No House Limit
THEY BACKED THE WORLD’S GREATEST GAMBLER TO BRING DOWN AN HONEST MAN
Joe Martin ran the biggest independent casino on the Las Vegas strip – and the Syndicate wanted him out. So they brought in Bello, the most famous gambler in the world, to challenge Joe to a marathon craps game. The everything Joe owns...
Joe Martin ran the biggest independent casino on the Las Vegas strip – and the Syndicate wanted him out. So they brought in Bello, the most famous gambler in the world, to challenge Joe to a marathon craps game. The everything Joe owns...
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
6 people are currently reading
254 people want to read
About the author
Steve Fisher
119 books14 followersBorn in 1912 in Marine City, Michigan, Stephen Gould Fisher was thirteen when he sold his first story to a magazine. At sixteen he joined the Marines. He was still in the service when he began to publish stories and articles in US Navy and Our Navy. Discharged from the Marines in Los Angeles in 1932, Fisher stayed in L.A., where he continued to write for US Navy, for which he was paid one cent a word. He was also, by this time, writing for a number of sex magazines.
In 1934 he moved to New York where, despite near destitution, he continued to pursue a career as a writer, and met, for the first time, his friend Frank Gruber.
Prior to his arrival in New York, Fisher had corresponded with Gruber, but the two had never met. It was in the Manhattan office of Ed Bodin, an agent who represented both authors, that the writers finally crossed paths.
They, of course, hit it off immediately, and left Bodin’s office on Fifth Avenue just below 23rd Street, on their way to Greenwich Village where, in Washington Square Park, they talked for three hours about their hopes, ambitions and their writing.
Over the years, the two men would remain close. Gruber, some fifteen years older than Fisher, was from a small farming town in Iowa. Already a prolific pulp writer, he counted amongst his friends the future father of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (the latter once told Gruber that his shift from science fiction to religious fiction occurred when he was shot in the neck with a poison dart while travelling up the Amazon). In 1941, the same year Fisher published I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber, under the name Charles K. Boston, published an all-but-forgotten Hollywood satire entitled The Silver Jackass. Much lighter, yet no less bitter than I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber’s whodunit was, in many ways, the other side of the coin from Fisher’s novel. At Warners, Gruber would go on to write the screenplay for Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios (1946) and Bulldog Drummond. A.I. Bezzerides remembers Jack Warner walking into the writers’ building and finding Gruber, Fisher and himself not at their desks, but on the floor shooting craps. He looked at his three writers, turned and walked away, knowing there was little he could do about such recalcitrance.
Gruber and Fisher constituted something of a two-person mutual admiration society. At a party for the release of The Blue Dahlia, Gruber nearly came to blows with his hero Raymond Chandler when the latter said some unfavourable things about Fisher. The reason for the altercation was that Fisher and Chandler were in dispute over screen credits for The Lady in the Lake. Chandler was convinced that his name should have appeared on the screen as well. Though he defended his friend, Gruber would remain a life-long admirer of Chandler’s writing. Foreshadowing Gruber’s run-in with Chandler, Fisher, hearing someone unfairly criticise one of Gruber’s stories in the Black Mask office, launched such an attack on the unfortunate writer that the editor had to throw the Gruber-critic out of the office and declare him persona non grata at Black Mask.
Recounting his early days as a writer in The Pulp Jungle, Gruber attests to Fisher’s burning ambition to succeed as a writer, a quality which, at times, assumed humorous dimensions. Such as when Fisher wrote to the New York electricity company, which, because of an outstanding bill, was about to switch off his power, asking them how they would feel if they had turned off the electricity on Jack London. He told them that he too would become a famous writer and they would be ashamed of themselves for cutting off his electricity. But cut him off they did, after which Fisher was forced to write by candlelight. In that same book, Gruber goes on to say that Fisher was most adept at writing romance.
In 1934 he moved to New York where, despite near destitution, he continued to pursue a career as a writer, and met, for the first time, his friend Frank Gruber.
Prior to his arrival in New York, Fisher had corresponded with Gruber, but the two had never met. It was in the Manhattan office of Ed Bodin, an agent who represented both authors, that the writers finally crossed paths.
They, of course, hit it off immediately, and left Bodin’s office on Fifth Avenue just below 23rd Street, on their way to Greenwich Village where, in Washington Square Park, they talked for three hours about their hopes, ambitions and their writing.
Over the years, the two men would remain close. Gruber, some fifteen years older than Fisher, was from a small farming town in Iowa. Already a prolific pulp writer, he counted amongst his friends the future father of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (the latter once told Gruber that his shift from science fiction to religious fiction occurred when he was shot in the neck with a poison dart while travelling up the Amazon). In 1941, the same year Fisher published I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber, under the name Charles K. Boston, published an all-but-forgotten Hollywood satire entitled The Silver Jackass. Much lighter, yet no less bitter than I Wake Up Screaming, Gruber’s whodunit was, in many ways, the other side of the coin from Fisher’s novel. At Warners, Gruber would go on to write the screenplay for Eric Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrios (1946) and Bulldog Drummond. A.I. Bezzerides remembers Jack Warner walking into the writers’ building and finding Gruber, Fisher and himself not at their desks, but on the floor shooting craps. He looked at his three writers, turned and walked away, knowing there was little he could do about such recalcitrance.
Gruber and Fisher constituted something of a two-person mutual admiration society. At a party for the release of The Blue Dahlia, Gruber nearly came to blows with his hero Raymond Chandler when the latter said some unfavourable things about Fisher. The reason for the altercation was that Fisher and Chandler were in dispute over screen credits for The Lady in the Lake. Chandler was convinced that his name should have appeared on the screen as well. Though he defended his friend, Gruber would remain a life-long admirer of Chandler’s writing. Foreshadowing Gruber’s run-in with Chandler, Fisher, hearing someone unfairly criticise one of Gruber’s stories in the Black Mask office, launched such an attack on the unfortunate writer that the editor had to throw the Gruber-critic out of the office and declare him persona non grata at Black Mask.
Recounting his early days as a writer in The Pulp Jungle, Gruber attests to Fisher’s burning ambition to succeed as a writer, a quality which, at times, assumed humorous dimensions. Such as when Fisher wrote to the New York electricity company, which, because of an outstanding bill, was about to switch off his power, asking them how they would feel if they had turned off the electricity on Jack London. He told them that he too would become a famous writer and they would be ashamed of themselves for cutting off his electricity. But cut him off they did, after which Fisher was forced to write by candlelight. In that same book, Gruber goes on to say that Fisher was most adept at writing romance.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
November 3, 2011
The Syndicate wanted to shut Joe Martin and his casino, Rainbow's End, down and brought in the best gambler in the world to put him out of business. Can Joe Martin keep his casino? And does the girl who's stolen his heart have anything to do with the people who want his money?
Yeah, there are some awesome books in the Hard Case Crime series and some that are only okay. This is one of the okay ones.
I like the idea of an independent casino owner going up against the mob to keep his business. It sounds good, right? Too bad it was kinda boring. I don't find the idea of a guy playing craps with Syndicate money trying to break a casino very exciting. Sunny Guido (Guido? Really?) would have made an interesting love interest for Joe if she wasn't such a bland doormat. The subplot with Dee and Malcolm didn't really do anything for me. Other than Joe Martin, the only character I cared about was Sprig, security at the Rainbow's End. By the end, I just didn't care anymore.
It wasn't a horrible book. It was fairly well written. I just don't see the attraction of Las Vegas, I guess.
Yeah, there are some awesome books in the Hard Case Crime series and some that are only okay. This is one of the okay ones.
I like the idea of an independent casino owner going up against the mob to keep his business. It sounds good, right? Too bad it was kinda boring. I don't find the idea of a guy playing craps with Syndicate money trying to break a casino very exciting. Sunny Guido (Guido? Really?) would have made an interesting love interest for Joe if she wasn't such a bland doormat. The subplot with Dee and Malcolm didn't really do anything for me. Other than Joe Martin, the only character I cared about was Sprig, security at the Rainbow's End. By the end, I just didn't care anymore.
It wasn't a horrible book. It was fairly well written. I just don't see the attraction of Las Vegas, I guess.
July 21, 2017
No House Limit was first published in 1958 and, as described by "one of his sons" in the afterword to the book, really described Las Vegas in the 1950's as one or two solo casinos held out against the crime syndicates and big corporations had yet to move in. It was a magical oasis or gambling and glamour. Apparently, Fisher knew many of the people who came to Las Vegas then chasing their dreams and coping with their desperations.
This is not so much a story with a conventional plot as a series of vignettes about a casino showdown taking place over the course of several days. Joe Martin, a tough Bogart-type, runs the biggest independent casino in Las Vegas and the Syndicate wants him out. They bring in Bello, the greatest gambler in the world, to break the casino. It's the world's greatest craps game and, even with Bello on the greatest winning streak in history, Martin cannot back down because he can't risk the casino's reputation and be seen as a cheapskate that won't take on the big bets.
On and on, the craps game goes down with brief breaks in between and dollar by dollar the casino is being bankrupted. Meanwhile, a side show takes place with Martin's fascination with Sunny Guido, a virginal schoolteacher. "The first time he saw her she was clad in a skintight white bathing suit and was lying face down so that the only visible part of her was the back of a rubber bathing cap, a slimly arched back and long, tawny legs, and he'd thought, idly, if any girl's face could equal this girl's figure, I'd trade the casino for her. And then she was on her back, looking up, as Mal introduced them: a saucy pug nose, a generous mouth, and wide green eyes that slanted up."
Mal Davis is the piano player. The General is a sharp, rich man claiming he was in town with his mistress and his daughter and that they were both nineteen. The general insisted on buying everyone drinks and making dates with every showgirl in the casino. Sprig is head of security and the power behind the casino. There are a myriad of such characters in this story as Sprig fends off attack after attack with counterfeiters and loaded dice and other distractions.
But the main event of the story is the showdown between Martin and Bello and Martin has to be there on the floor to okay the bigger and bigger and more complicated bets that Bello lays down with no house limit in an effort to break the last independent casino.
All in all, a top-notch book that gives the reader the flavor and feel of the 1950s era of Las Vegas, including the glamour, the desperation, and the dry desert air. Highly recommended.
This is not so much a story with a conventional plot as a series of vignettes about a casino showdown taking place over the course of several days. Joe Martin, a tough Bogart-type, runs the biggest independent casino in Las Vegas and the Syndicate wants him out. They bring in Bello, the greatest gambler in the world, to break the casino. It's the world's greatest craps game and, even with Bello on the greatest winning streak in history, Martin cannot back down because he can't risk the casino's reputation and be seen as a cheapskate that won't take on the big bets.
On and on, the craps game goes down with brief breaks in between and dollar by dollar the casino is being bankrupted. Meanwhile, a side show takes place with Martin's fascination with Sunny Guido, a virginal schoolteacher. "The first time he saw her she was clad in a skintight white bathing suit and was lying face down so that the only visible part of her was the back of a rubber bathing cap, a slimly arched back and long, tawny legs, and he'd thought, idly, if any girl's face could equal this girl's figure, I'd trade the casino for her. And then she was on her back, looking up, as Mal introduced them: a saucy pug nose, a generous mouth, and wide green eyes that slanted up."
Mal Davis is the piano player. The General is a sharp, rich man claiming he was in town with his mistress and his daughter and that they were both nineteen. The general insisted on buying everyone drinks and making dates with every showgirl in the casino. Sprig is head of security and the power behind the casino. There are a myriad of such characters in this story as Sprig fends off attack after attack with counterfeiters and loaded dice and other distractions.
But the main event of the story is the showdown between Martin and Bello and Martin has to be there on the floor to okay the bigger and bigger and more complicated bets that Bello lays down with no house limit in an effort to break the last independent casino.
All in all, a top-notch book that gives the reader the flavor and feel of the 1950s era of Las Vegas, including the glamour, the desperation, and the dry desert air. Highly recommended.
January 18, 2012
I guess the first question many would ask is why bother read these old pulp fiction novels. Nostalgia, plot, setting, voyeurism, writing style, pictures of busty blonds on the cover; all of these I suppose. For lack of a better reason, I guess it would be the same reason why some people watch football. They provide easy, often thoughtless, entertainment.
That being said, Hard Case Crime, reissued a whole series of novels from the fifties and early sixties, most of which might be defined as noir, or representing the underbelly of American culture.
No House Limit portrays Joe Martin, owner of an independent, i.e., not controlled by the syndicate, casino in Las Vegas. The syndicate has vowed to shut him down and their approach is to hire a well-known gambler, Bello, to gamble him out of existence. An implausible scenario, certainly. What makes the reader want to continue is the atmosphere, the ambiance, the recreation of what we think a fifties casino might be like. Note I suggested it’s what we imagine it might be like. Whether it was or not, is really irrelevant to me. It’s a story and an intriguing one that allows the reader to lose himself in another world.
Written by Steve Fisher who, according to a postscript by his son wrote close to one hundred novels in the fifties. It has a very archaic flavor with stock characters straight out of the movies for which Fisher wrote many scripts.
Bello was patterned after the infamous Nick the Greek, a rather pathetic gambler who was introduced to Michael Fisher by his father. Nick once said he had won and lost close to $500 million in his lifetime and what really made him pathetic in Michael’s eyes were the boxes of letters Nick kept in his garage from people who might enclose $5 or $10 and ask Nick to gamble it for them in hopes he would strike it rich for them to help pay their medical bills or save their home.
I certainly learned a lot about craps.
That being said, Hard Case Crime, reissued a whole series of novels from the fifties and early sixties, most of which might be defined as noir, or representing the underbelly of American culture.
No House Limit portrays Joe Martin, owner of an independent, i.e., not controlled by the syndicate, casino in Las Vegas. The syndicate has vowed to shut him down and their approach is to hire a well-known gambler, Bello, to gamble him out of existence. An implausible scenario, certainly. What makes the reader want to continue is the atmosphere, the ambiance, the recreation of what we think a fifties casino might be like. Note I suggested it’s what we imagine it might be like. Whether it was or not, is really irrelevant to me. It’s a story and an intriguing one that allows the reader to lose himself in another world.
Written by Steve Fisher who, according to a postscript by his son wrote close to one hundred novels in the fifties. It has a very archaic flavor with stock characters straight out of the movies for which Fisher wrote many scripts.
Bello was patterned after the infamous Nick the Greek, a rather pathetic gambler who was introduced to Michael Fisher by his father. Nick once said he had won and lost close to $500 million in his lifetime and what really made him pathetic in Michael’s eyes were the boxes of letters Nick kept in his garage from people who might enclose $5 or $10 and ask Nick to gamble it for them in hopes he would strike it rich for them to help pay their medical bills or save their home.
I certainly learned a lot about craps.
June 20, 2009
There was one thing about No House Limit that bugged me and bugged me and bugged me such that it really interfered with my ability to enjoy the novel: the portrayal of the gambler Bello and his craps expertise. On the one hand, No House Limit presents itself as an insider's look at Vegas and crapshooting: most of the chapters begin with short tutorials about Vegas and/or craps, and in an afterward he wrote for this Hard Case Crime reprint, one of Steve Fisher's sons mentions the research that his father did for this book. But the portrayal of Bello playing craps is all wrong. Bello, we are told, is a legendary craps player with a betting system so mathematically complicated that onlookers are helpless to understand what he is doing. But this is nonsense. Saying that someone is a great craps player is like saying that someone is a great slot-machine player. In both games, the house always wins over the long haul. That's the point of casino games! So Bello has developed a complicated system of placing bets . . . that all favor the house! Fisher should have done more with the loaded dice angle (which does figure to some degree in Bello's success), and leave the idiocy alone. Did I mention that this bugged me?
July 13, 2015
The whole "siege" concept seemed a bit silly to me. But I did think at the beginning that it had a potential to develop into something (more) interesting. There are few cool characters and beautiful dames (we are in Vegas after all) and parallel to the main story there's another subplot in which Joe's right-hand man is shielding his boss from the various distractions that might break his concentration. Because during this "siege", syndicate tries to disrupt things by "pushing the queer chips", switching dices with "shaved" ones and even dispatching a hit-man from Chicago.
But all those episodes are just fillers for the main theme. Which is not even gambling, it's LOVE! Joe and his piano player both fall desperately for two women they've just met. In fact, once the siege is over, both of them will propose to their new found loves. So instead of hard-boiled gangster pulp novel, this turns into incredibly cheesy and at times hilariously funny romance crap. Too bad.
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2014/10/n...
But all those episodes are just fillers for the main theme. Which is not even gambling, it's LOVE! Joe and his piano player both fall desperately for two women they've just met. In fact, once the siege is over, both of them will propose to their new found loves. So instead of hard-boiled gangster pulp novel, this turns into incredibly cheesy and at times hilariously funny romance crap. Too bad.
More here (review includes spoilers!):
http://a60books.blogspot.ie/2014/10/n...
November 29, 2008
Not a bad story, but comes across as very dated.
December 1, 2016
It is 1958, and Joe Martin is the last private casino owner left on the Vegas strip. The mob has decided it’s finally time to push him out. Their plan is simple: Stake the world’s best craps player, Belo, and send him in to bankrupt Joe’s casino during a non-stop 3-day gambling siege.
This would be a preposterous premise in today’s high-tech, corporate-owned version of Vegas, but everybody has heard the urban legends of big-time gamblers called whales who could bankrupt a casino over the course of a good weekend in the 1950’s.
It is interesting to note the author would have certainly been familiar with these stories; he lived only 3 blocks away from Bugsy Siegel, the mobster who built the first Vegas casino and then was later gunned down by his unhappy partners in his home!
This story is at its best when it focuses on Skip, the head of casino security, as he tries to outmaneuver the shenanigans of the mobsters. Skip seems to be the brains; Joe simply stares down Belo over the tables and fights exhaustion for 200 pages.
The story is at its worst when it focuses on the maudlin love story between Joe and a visiting schoolteacher, or on the trivial subplots of Mal Davis the bar pianist who tries to save every showgirl and damsel in distress he meets.
I particularly enjoyed the climax of the story, even if it did rely more on Joe’s luck rather than his brains or brawn. Several seemingly trivial subplots came to bear on the outcome, and the final scenes are both triumphant and bittersweet. With a few plot tweaks here and there, I could not help but wonder if this could be made into a really good movie one day.
This is not a groundbreaking addition to the Hard Case Crime library, but it is a fun, easy read nonetheless.
This would be a preposterous premise in today’s high-tech, corporate-owned version of Vegas, but everybody has heard the urban legends of big-time gamblers called whales who could bankrupt a casino over the course of a good weekend in the 1950’s.
It is interesting to note the author would have certainly been familiar with these stories; he lived only 3 blocks away from Bugsy Siegel, the mobster who built the first Vegas casino and then was later gunned down by his unhappy partners in his home!
This story is at its best when it focuses on Skip, the head of casino security, as he tries to outmaneuver the shenanigans of the mobsters. Skip seems to be the brains; Joe simply stares down Belo over the tables and fights exhaustion for 200 pages.
The story is at its worst when it focuses on the maudlin love story between Joe and a visiting schoolteacher, or on the trivial subplots of Mal Davis the bar pianist who tries to save every showgirl and damsel in distress he meets.
I particularly enjoyed the climax of the story, even if it did rely more on Joe’s luck rather than his brains or brawn. Several seemingly trivial subplots came to bear on the outcome, and the final scenes are both triumphant and bittersweet. With a few plot tweaks here and there, I could not help but wonder if this could be made into a really good movie one day.
This is not a groundbreaking addition to the Hard Case Crime library, but it is a fun, easy read nonetheless.
May 28, 2019
First question -- Why aren't more of this author's books in print?
This book is a ride, an education, and something you wish Bogart was alive to star in. Taking you back to the birth of Las Vegas when the mob controlled everything, when being left in the middle of the desert was justice, when a roll of a pair of dice decides whether you live or die. Fisher writes a book that puts you into the middle of the heat, a heat only avoided by darkened and air conditioned casinos.
The book takes place over a three day period in which the mob tries to wipe out a legitimate casino owner. Fisher takes the time to teach you the rules of the game, craps that is, while telling a story in which bluffs and deceit define the action off of the table. As a true noir, we have the not so innocent blond distracting our main character from the snakes all around him. The stakes grow and grow on and off the table, and all comes to a head in the tumult of guns, beatings, death, and millions of dollars changing hands.
What is the picture when the puzzle is put together? I'm not going to tell you. Read the book, then demand for the books of Steve Fisher to see print once again.
This book is a ride, an education, and something you wish Bogart was alive to star in. Taking you back to the birth of Las Vegas when the mob controlled everything, when being left in the middle of the desert was justice, when a roll of a pair of dice decides whether you live or die. Fisher writes a book that puts you into the middle of the heat, a heat only avoided by darkened and air conditioned casinos.
The book takes place over a three day period in which the mob tries to wipe out a legitimate casino owner. Fisher takes the time to teach you the rules of the game, craps that is, while telling a story in which bluffs and deceit define the action off of the table. As a true noir, we have the not so innocent blond distracting our main character from the snakes all around him. The stakes grow and grow on and off the table, and all comes to a head in the tumult of guns, beatings, death, and millions of dollars changing hands.
What is the picture when the puzzle is put together? I'm not going to tell you. Read the book, then demand for the books of Steve Fisher to see print once again.
July 12, 2019
it's an atypical crime book because the focus on violence and fast talking is minimal, instead it focuses on the mounting pressure of 'the siege,': an attempt by local mob syndicates to break Joe Martin, the boss of Rainbow's End, a Las Vegas Casino. They try to break him by bankrolling a major gambler and introducing loaded dice and counterfeit chips, by distracting Joe from his duties. Nobody sleeps in this book and it feels tired; the b-plots are converge around the a-plot, with lots of short term romance with promises of commitment. it unfortunately leans into some nastier elements of misogyny, which might work character-wise if they were meant to build flaws and display the world that we're functioning in, but it's unearned and we're /expected/ to forgive it as an audience and still like the characters. but there's a tense conclusion and the ways it subverted typical narratives by avoiding a visible villain and hardcore violence tips the scale in its favor.
March 22, 2025
Bello, “the greatest gambler of them all”! And he is given four hundred thousand dollars to go up against ten million!
I could hear the slot machines jangling and smell the cigarettes and cheap perfume. And there is a ton of information about gambling and casino operations in this book, circa 1958. Very colorful and descriptive!
My issue is with the main battle of the story - gambler vs. casino. Bello is trying to break the casino, and Joe Martin, the owner, just watches him. He doesn't stop him, close the table, or close the casino itself. It is explained with a reference to 'losing face' in the gambling casino and looking weak, or some such thing. I don't know if that was/is a real thing or not. I just know that if a man comes in to play craps and put me out of business, I'd stop him from playing in my casino. But then again, that would be a short story and not a book.
I could hear the slot machines jangling and smell the cigarettes and cheap perfume. And there is a ton of information about gambling and casino operations in this book, circa 1958. Very colorful and descriptive!
My issue is with the main battle of the story - gambler vs. casino. Bello is trying to break the casino, and Joe Martin, the owner, just watches him. He doesn't stop him, close the table, or close the casino itself. It is explained with a reference to 'losing face' in the gambling casino and looking weak, or some such thing. I don't know if that was/is a real thing or not. I just know that if a man comes in to play craps and put me out of business, I'd stop him from playing in my casino. But then again, that would be a short story and not a book.
February 9, 2016
Steve Fisher is another author whom I’d never heard of before despite his swath of material. He’s written, from what I can tell, hundreds of novels, almost a thousand short stories, and a hundred-twenty movie scripts/screenplays, including those for Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake, and the Bogart films Dead Reckoning and Tokyo Joe, along with the final Thin Man film, and the screenplay for his own bestseller I Wake Up Screaming. The afterword by one of the author’s son fills in a lot of interesting details. Living in Las Vegas, Fisher was enamored with the glitz and gambling of the city, and used a lot of research and insider’s intel to craft this novel, No House Limit.
The book has three main plot threads, which I’ll go over individually. First and foremost is that of Joe Martin, owner of Rainbow’s End. Joe became an expert craps player as a private in Europe, and went to Vegas with his winnings to start a casino. After refusing to buy protection from The Syndicate, they attempted to crash his casino by out-gambling him; they lost, and Rainbow’s End became the luxurious dream it is now. Now, The Syndicate is trying again: they’re backing the world’s greatest gambler, Bello, to win all of Joe’s money away. And right away, he’s off to an impressive start.
While Joe spends most of his time down at the tables, keeping an eye on Bello (and hoping he’ll lose), he’s also dealing with a love interest: schoolteacher Sunny Guido. Joe is Humprey Bogart in everything but name; just look at the dialogue. He’s a rough-and-tumble man of action who also happens to be scared witless, self-isolated by his own rough attitude. Joe needs Sunny—not just from attraction, but as a psychological safety net and caretaker in his penthouse hideaway, but he never wants to say what he means. You know how in those old films, Bogart would get into a verbal sparring match with the love interest, she’d send a zinger back at him, he’d slap her, she’d slap back, and within a few moments they’d be making out? Yeah, he’s that kind of character, with deep-seated issues that won’t let his romantic side play out.
The second thread is that of Mal Davis, lounge singer/piano player at Rainbow’s End. He’s more or less a washout, and is waiting on his agent to give him a call on his record contract attempts, stuck playing piano for Joe and hoping someone will notice his talents. Mal spends a lot of time at the bars and lounges, meeting a variety of interesting characters taken from all walks of Vegas life: gamblers and showgirls, weirdos, freaks, drunks, starry-eyed dreamers and harsh-toned cynics. Soon, eye-catcher Dee, Bello’s girl, entangles him. Dee enjoyed living the high life with Bello as her sugar daddy, but now wants to get out. Their relationship builds over a series of secret rendezvous; eventually they’re told by their respective sides to lay off. And then they find out that they can’t.
The third storyline is that of Sprig, Joe’s head of security, who’s implied to be ex-FBI or law enforcement. Either way, he’s kind of a ninja, in that he’s best at everything: he rough-houses traitorous employees, sees through disguises and plots, unearths counterfeit chips, and even beats the crap out of a Chicago hitman hired to kill… Sprig himself. Sprig’s sections are the shortest; they illuminate the greater scheme without getting in the way of the two parallel romantic entanglements.
I have to say, Fisher did a fantastic job building tension throughout the novel: there’s a strong sense of Joe’s fatigue in the claustrophobic casino interior as Bello’s gamble drags on. I give him more credit because the plot is ludicrously thin. Bello’s big plan is “have the house take its limit off of maximum bet amounts, then gamble like nobody’s business,” which is not the plan I’d have if I wanted to break the bank. On the other hand, it’s implied he’s not only lucky but so mathematically astute that his betting style and choices aren’t repeatable by mortal men. Bello is an analogue for Nick the Greek, famed gambler who won and lost an estimated $500 million in his lifetime, which can help explain Bello’s fame, luck, and numbers-crunching skills. But the idea of trying to win $10 million just by making larger bets doesn’t fly.
Fisher’s experience with Bogart screenplays and crime thrillers is a strong advantage: it shows, in the terse dialogue, the pounding tension, and the web of sub-plots which build up to a crescendo. Fisher’s handling is deft, making it a sublime treat for the ’50s noir fan. The only downside is that its horrible Fifties feel is worse than most other books from the era; the Joe-Sunny relationship makes it one of the more misogynistic Hard Case Crimes I’ve read, and it's from an era when “Negros” weren’t allowed on the Strip.
I read No House Limit as a period piece in more ways than one. It’s a vision of Vegas that looks nothing like our contemporary one—in fact, hasn’t been seen since the Rat Pack was swingin’ through the Strip—and the misogynistic relationship is dated. But Fisher’s prose is steady, unblinking as it dives through intrigue and tension at an ever-increasing pace. And his writing style... man, it's slick. Despite its flaws, of which there are several, No House Limit was worth the time, thrilling and convincingly written, and now I’m on the lookout for more Steve Fisher novels.
(Full review found here.)
The book has three main plot threads, which I’ll go over individually. First and foremost is that of Joe Martin, owner of Rainbow’s End. Joe became an expert craps player as a private in Europe, and went to Vegas with his winnings to start a casino. After refusing to buy protection from The Syndicate, they attempted to crash his casino by out-gambling him; they lost, and Rainbow’s End became the luxurious dream it is now. Now, The Syndicate is trying again: they’re backing the world’s greatest gambler, Bello, to win all of Joe’s money away. And right away, he’s off to an impressive start.
While Joe spends most of his time down at the tables, keeping an eye on Bello (and hoping he’ll lose), he’s also dealing with a love interest: schoolteacher Sunny Guido. Joe is Humprey Bogart in everything but name; just look at the dialogue. He’s a rough-and-tumble man of action who also happens to be scared witless, self-isolated by his own rough attitude. Joe needs Sunny—not just from attraction, but as a psychological safety net and caretaker in his penthouse hideaway, but he never wants to say what he means. You know how in those old films, Bogart would get into a verbal sparring match with the love interest, she’d send a zinger back at him, he’d slap her, she’d slap back, and within a few moments they’d be making out? Yeah, he’s that kind of character, with deep-seated issues that won’t let his romantic side play out.
The second thread is that of Mal Davis, lounge singer/piano player at Rainbow’s End. He’s more or less a washout, and is waiting on his agent to give him a call on his record contract attempts, stuck playing piano for Joe and hoping someone will notice his talents. Mal spends a lot of time at the bars and lounges, meeting a variety of interesting characters taken from all walks of Vegas life: gamblers and showgirls, weirdos, freaks, drunks, starry-eyed dreamers and harsh-toned cynics. Soon, eye-catcher Dee, Bello’s girl, entangles him. Dee enjoyed living the high life with Bello as her sugar daddy, but now wants to get out. Their relationship builds over a series of secret rendezvous; eventually they’re told by their respective sides to lay off. And then they find out that they can’t.
The third storyline is that of Sprig, Joe’s head of security, who’s implied to be ex-FBI or law enforcement. Either way, he’s kind of a ninja, in that he’s best at everything: he rough-houses traitorous employees, sees through disguises and plots, unearths counterfeit chips, and even beats the crap out of a Chicago hitman hired to kill… Sprig himself. Sprig’s sections are the shortest; they illuminate the greater scheme without getting in the way of the two parallel romantic entanglements.
I have to say, Fisher did a fantastic job building tension throughout the novel: there’s a strong sense of Joe’s fatigue in the claustrophobic casino interior as Bello’s gamble drags on. I give him more credit because the plot is ludicrously thin. Bello’s big plan is “have the house take its limit off of maximum bet amounts, then gamble like nobody’s business,” which is not the plan I’d have if I wanted to break the bank. On the other hand, it’s implied he’s not only lucky but so mathematically astute that his betting style and choices aren’t repeatable by mortal men. Bello is an analogue for Nick the Greek, famed gambler who won and lost an estimated $500 million in his lifetime, which can help explain Bello’s fame, luck, and numbers-crunching skills. But the idea of trying to win $10 million just by making larger bets doesn’t fly.
Fisher’s experience with Bogart screenplays and crime thrillers is a strong advantage: it shows, in the terse dialogue, the pounding tension, and the web of sub-plots which build up to a crescendo. Fisher’s handling is deft, making it a sublime treat for the ’50s noir fan. The only downside is that its horrible Fifties feel is worse than most other books from the era; the Joe-Sunny relationship makes it one of the more misogynistic Hard Case Crimes I’ve read, and it's from an era when “Negros” weren’t allowed on the Strip.
I read No House Limit as a period piece in more ways than one. It’s a vision of Vegas that looks nothing like our contemporary one—in fact, hasn’t been seen since the Rat Pack was swingin’ through the Strip—and the misogynistic relationship is dated. But Fisher’s prose is steady, unblinking as it dives through intrigue and tension at an ever-increasing pace. And his writing style... man, it's slick. Despite its flaws, of which there are several, No House Limit was worth the time, thrilling and convincingly written, and now I’m on the lookout for more Steve Fisher novels.
(Full review found here.)
Read
March 2, 2022The forty-fifth hard case crime novel finished no house limit by steve fisher is a fun little romp set in las vegas featuring an independent casino owner trying to avoid being made bankrupt by the syndicate that owns the other casinos in town, a naive teacher on holiday who falls for him, an aging entertainer, a gambler, the gamblers girl and a head of casino security all getting involved in schemes and counter-schemes to either save or break the casino. Come for the plot and stay for the interesting depictions of the psychology of all the main characters.
January 17, 2025
While the Hard Case Crime pulp fiction series is generally of good quality, every now and then a gem appears in the series. This is one of those.
The story follows a night in the life of a casino manager in the early days of Las Vegas' existence. Gambling, deceit, murder, gangsters and dames. This book has it all. Loved every chapter of it.
I will have to check out more of the lat Steve Fisher's work if I can. It has distinct flavors of Donald E. Westlake. Excellent stuff!
The story follows a night in the life of a casino manager in the early days of Las Vegas' existence. Gambling, deceit, murder, gangsters and dames. This book has it all. Loved every chapter of it.
I will have to check out more of the lat Steve Fisher's work if I can. It has distinct flavors of Donald E. Westlake. Excellent stuff!
March 12, 2017
Four stars for Fischer's superb dialog throughout this slightly corny but fast paced little diversion. Yes, the characters are typical, and the action predictable, but it's quintessential '50s noir, as it should be.
April 5, 2018
Mal was only slightly more interesting. Joe Martin might be the most boring character in the Hard Case Crime series I've come across. Gimme a Sprigg series! ... don't get me started on the female characters. Worst HCC book since Straight Cut by Bell.
April 11, 2022
A delightful read. Written by Humphrey Bogart’s screenwriter, it reads like a film Bogart might have starred in. Notes of RatPack with a dash of Casino magic from the Vegas remembered in books and movies.
October 9, 2021
‘No House Limit’ is outstanding part of the Hard Case Crime series. This was written by someone living in Vegas and he does an amazing job of depicting the area. A good story, too.
August 31, 2022
This one just wasn't for me
October 31, 2022
A good book- but one star off for the misogyny. It's never ok for a man to hit a woman, or pin her down and try to force her to have sex. Clearly, a product of its time.
October 14, 2025
One of my favorites so far!
December 6, 2011
Steve Fisher was an amazingly prolific author, his output totaling around a hundred novels, 900 short stories and 120 movie and television scripts. His best-known crime novel was probably I Wake Up Screaming. His 1958 novel No House Limit was subtitled A Novel of Las Vegas and is perhaps the ultimate gambling novel.
Joe Martin owns and runs the Rainbow’s End casino in Las Vegas, one of the biggest casinos in the city. It’s a completely independent operation, not associated with any crime or gambling syndicates. Since the days when mobsters like Bugsy Siegel established the city as a gambling centre the Las Vegas syndicate had been trying to clean up its act. They wanted to avoid anything that would scare off the customers. That meant no gangland-style killings. If Joe Martin refused to join the syndicate that was his business. There was more than enough money to go around and they were content to leave him alone.
Now someone is targeting Joe Martin. He has his sources and he knows the attack is coming but he has no idea who is behind it. He does know what the weapon will be though. It will be Bello, the world’s most famous professional gambler. Whoever is out to get Joe has provided Bello with a $400,000 stake. The objective is to wipe out Joe Martin at the crap tables, to take everything he has including the casino. And if anyone can do it, Bello can.
Joe Martin is not going to be a pushover though. You don’t survive for a decade as one of the major casino operators in Vegas without knowing a thing or two about survival. Joe is no criminal, his operations are strictly legitimate, but he’s still one very tough guy and he has the reputation of having the proverbial nerves of steel.
Joe has other things on his mind at this time. Well one thing in particular - a girl called Sunny Guido. No-one really knows much about her. She just turned up at the casino but she’s obviously pretty interested in Joe Martin. And he’s rather interested in her as well. He’s the kind of guy who has always prided himself on not needing anyone, especially women, but Sunny is different. To his own amazement he finds that he is falling for her. Maybe it’s just the pressure. And that pressure gets pretty intense after two days of non-stop action at the crap tables have seen Joe lose $2 million to Bello. At the moment he’s in need of emotional support. But maybe it’s more than that.
The Rainbow’s End is being targeted in other ways as well - counterfeit gambling chips, loaded dice, betrayals by employees. It’s all part of a concerted plan to break Joe Martin.
Bello is not without his weaknesses as well. His girlfriend Dee is getting restless and she’s making a play for Mal Davis, a lounge singer and piano player at the Rainbow’s End and an old friend of Joe’s. Bello has the reputation of being a man who doesn’t like to lose at anything and Mal knows that stealing his girl could get him killed.
Fisher builds the tension remorselessly as fortunes ebb and flow in the epic gambling battle that will decide the fate of Joe Martin. Fisher was a keen gambler himself and displays his encyclopedic knowledge of the world of the high rollers. The book has a heady atmosphere of dangerous glamour mixed with desperation.
The character of Bello was based on a real-life gambler, the legendary Nick the Greek - a man reputed to have won and lost $500 million at the gambling tables.
No House Limit has been reissued by Hard Case Crime and is highly recommended.
Joe Martin owns and runs the Rainbow’s End casino in Las Vegas, one of the biggest casinos in the city. It’s a completely independent operation, not associated with any crime or gambling syndicates. Since the days when mobsters like Bugsy Siegel established the city as a gambling centre the Las Vegas syndicate had been trying to clean up its act. They wanted to avoid anything that would scare off the customers. That meant no gangland-style killings. If Joe Martin refused to join the syndicate that was his business. There was more than enough money to go around and they were content to leave him alone.
Now someone is targeting Joe Martin. He has his sources and he knows the attack is coming but he has no idea who is behind it. He does know what the weapon will be though. It will be Bello, the world’s most famous professional gambler. Whoever is out to get Joe has provided Bello with a $400,000 stake. The objective is to wipe out Joe Martin at the crap tables, to take everything he has including the casino. And if anyone can do it, Bello can.
Joe Martin is not going to be a pushover though. You don’t survive for a decade as one of the major casino operators in Vegas without knowing a thing or two about survival. Joe is no criminal, his operations are strictly legitimate, but he’s still one very tough guy and he has the reputation of having the proverbial nerves of steel.
Joe has other things on his mind at this time. Well one thing in particular - a girl called Sunny Guido. No-one really knows much about her. She just turned up at the casino but she’s obviously pretty interested in Joe Martin. And he’s rather interested in her as well. He’s the kind of guy who has always prided himself on not needing anyone, especially women, but Sunny is different. To his own amazement he finds that he is falling for her. Maybe it’s just the pressure. And that pressure gets pretty intense after two days of non-stop action at the crap tables have seen Joe lose $2 million to Bello. At the moment he’s in need of emotional support. But maybe it’s more than that.
The Rainbow’s End is being targeted in other ways as well - counterfeit gambling chips, loaded dice, betrayals by employees. It’s all part of a concerted plan to break Joe Martin.
Bello is not without his weaknesses as well. His girlfriend Dee is getting restless and she’s making a play for Mal Davis, a lounge singer and piano player at the Rainbow’s End and an old friend of Joe’s. Bello has the reputation of being a man who doesn’t like to lose at anything and Mal knows that stealing his girl could get him killed.
Fisher builds the tension remorselessly as fortunes ebb and flow in the epic gambling battle that will decide the fate of Joe Martin. Fisher was a keen gambler himself and displays his encyclopedic knowledge of the world of the high rollers. The book has a heady atmosphere of dangerous glamour mixed with desperation.
The character of Bello was based on a real-life gambler, the legendary Nick the Greek - a man reputed to have won and lost $500 million at the gambling tables.
No House Limit has been reissued by Hard Case Crime and is highly recommended.
July 21, 2015
Steve Fisher is a hugely influential, yet surprisingly little known noir author. Incredibly prolific, he adapted many noir classics for the screen, including Double Indemnity. His most famous novel, I Wake Up Screaming, has one of the most imitated plotlines in all of noir (troubled alcoholic wakes up next to the corpse of a beautiful young woman with no memory of the night before). In No House Limit, Mr. Fisher gives us a sort of crime fable set in the far away land of Las Vegas.
No House Limit is subtitled "a novel of Las Vegas", and the changing face of mid-1950's Las Vegas is the real protagonist here. The novel takes place a mere seven years after Bugsy Siegel and the syndicate began to transform Vegas from an interesting stopover to a destination. The independent casinos are on their way out and multinational entertainment corporations are only beginning to notice the possibilities in this town. For a hot couple of decades, the mob was in ascendance here. I read No House Limit while I was on my way to Las Vegas on vacation. A certain contextual jolt made the reading and my trip a few degrees more pleasurable.
Joe Martin is the last of the independent casino owners, and the mob is out to break his bank. The level of Federal interest in mob activity in Vegas makes direct action impossible, so instead they bankroll Bello "The World's Greatest Gambler" to break the bank of his casino in a single marathon craps game. The game runs almost non-stop for days w/ short hr long breaks for eating and sleeping. Once the game begins the novel sustains a slow boiling tension throughout. Most of the action is restricted to the casino itself, but there is a wide range of characters surrounding the action, each with their own horse in the race and their own attempts to influence the outcome. The set-up is so outrageous that the novel takes on a fable like quality as fortunes rise and fall with each roll of the dice. Unbelievably, the situation is based on a real life event in which "The World's Greatest Gambler" Nick the Greek was bankrolled by the mob to break the bank of a small casino in a marathon poker match.
I enjoyed the hell out of this novel, but I have to knock off one star because the women in this book are completely ridiculous. It's not just a matter of period sexism, it's lazy and unrealistic writing. The celebrity obsessed, albino waitress and the cynical showgirl hoping to be proved wrong are one note characters, but at least they are somewhat interesting. The two female leads, Sunny Guido the ingenue schoolteacher and Dee the gambler's girl are nothing but a loose collection of tired stereotypes and convenient plot devices.
Read No House Limit for its evocation of a gambling fairytale, read it for its impeccable sense of time and place, and then quietly shake your head at the short stick Mr Fisher gave his female cast.
No House Limit is subtitled "a novel of Las Vegas", and the changing face of mid-1950's Las Vegas is the real protagonist here. The novel takes place a mere seven years after Bugsy Siegel and the syndicate began to transform Vegas from an interesting stopover to a destination. The independent casinos are on their way out and multinational entertainment corporations are only beginning to notice the possibilities in this town. For a hot couple of decades, the mob was in ascendance here. I read No House Limit while I was on my way to Las Vegas on vacation. A certain contextual jolt made the reading and my trip a few degrees more pleasurable.
Joe Martin is the last of the independent casino owners, and the mob is out to break his bank. The level of Federal interest in mob activity in Vegas makes direct action impossible, so instead they bankroll Bello "The World's Greatest Gambler" to break the bank of his casino in a single marathon craps game. The game runs almost non-stop for days w/ short hr long breaks for eating and sleeping. Once the game begins the novel sustains a slow boiling tension throughout. Most of the action is restricted to the casino itself, but there is a wide range of characters surrounding the action, each with their own horse in the race and their own attempts to influence the outcome. The set-up is so outrageous that the novel takes on a fable like quality as fortunes rise and fall with each roll of the dice. Unbelievably, the situation is based on a real life event in which "The World's Greatest Gambler" Nick the Greek was bankrolled by the mob to break the bank of a small casino in a marathon poker match.
I enjoyed the hell out of this novel, but I have to knock off one star because the women in this book are completely ridiculous. It's not just a matter of period sexism, it's lazy and unrealistic writing. The celebrity obsessed, albino waitress and the cynical showgirl hoping to be proved wrong are one note characters, but at least they are somewhat interesting. The two female leads, Sunny Guido the ingenue schoolteacher and Dee the gambler's girl are nothing but a loose collection of tired stereotypes and convenient plot devices.
Read No House Limit for its evocation of a gambling fairytale, read it for its impeccable sense of time and place, and then quietly shake your head at the short stick Mr Fisher gave his female cast.
July 14, 2008
Very tight, compelling narrative about a "seige" on a Vegas casino in the 50s involving a professional high-stakes gambler who goes head to head with the casino boss for days of throwing the bones.
The afterword by one of Fisher's sons makes clear that much of the material in the book was based on extensive background research conducted by Fisher, who wrote several Bogart movies and piles of pulp novels. Fisher Jr. suggests that one of the characters is partly based on Bogie, and names the actual cocktail piano player who is the basis for said character in the book.
I wish the brief paragraph about the one mixed-race joint on the edge of town that was closed down was expanded into a subplot or separate story. This is set in the days before the "color line" was broken in Las Vegas, reminding us that some things actually do get better.
The afterword by one of Fisher's sons makes clear that much of the material in the book was based on extensive background research conducted by Fisher, who wrote several Bogart movies and piles of pulp novels. Fisher Jr. suggests that one of the characters is partly based on Bogie, and names the actual cocktail piano player who is the basis for said character in the book.
I wish the brief paragraph about the one mixed-race joint on the edge of town that was closed down was expanded into a subplot or separate story. This is set in the days before the "color line" was broken in Las Vegas, reminding us that some things actually do get better.
April 24, 2012
This is one hell of a book. This is the first time I've read anything by Steve Fisher, and it damn sure won't be the last. This guy wrote around 100 novels, and wrote tons for TV and Film, including two Bogart movies (Dead Reckoning and Tokyo Joe.) Seems I learn something new every day, and my stack of books "to read" is growing faster and taller than my kids. Anyway No House Limit is a Las Vegas story. It has a cool, jazzy narrative that pulls you in by beginning most chapters with a little Vegas gambling lesson. Which is very helpful, especially if you don't speak the language of gaming. This is hardboiled fiction at its white-knuckled best. Originally published in 1958. Reissued in 2008 by that Godsend to the genre Hard Case Crime. It includes a really cool afterword written by one of Steve Fisher's sons.
November 14, 2012
"No House Limit" is a very unusual and unique novel by one of the most undersung masters of noir, Steve Fisher. It is structured somewhat like a screenplay--perhaps not surprising, since Fisher spent decades in Hollywood--and concerns the attempts of the unnamed syndicate in Vegas to break the bank of a casino owned by a lone wolf by hiring the world's best gambler. That's about it for high concept, but what keeps the reader reading (at least this reader) is Fisher's interwoven threads of the various casino employees working day and night to fend off the attack by the syndicate. In the process many of these characters evolve mightily, and there are a few genuine surprises along the way. If you want a formula noirish crime caper set in pre-Rat Pack Las Vegas, this is not it. If, however, you want to see a different way of looking a heist story, then you should read this book.
May 31, 2014
Joe Martin owns the biggest independent casino in 1958 Las Vegas. And the syndicate, aka the mob, wants him out, so they hire a master gambler to ruin Martin, in a long master craps game. The author wrote some fine movies, as it says on the back, and I Wake Up Screaming. All good stuff.
This book was enjoyable, with some good twists and characters. The background on casino gambling in the 50s was good, but craps isn't that interesting a game to me, never has been, and this book doesn't really make it more so. I also felt that a couple times the author sort of cheated by not telling you some stuff about some characters.
That said, it's still an engaging, fast read, and the portrait of Vegas in the 50s, written at the time, is compelling.
This book was enjoyable, with some good twists and characters. The background on casino gambling in the 50s was good, but craps isn't that interesting a game to me, never has been, and this book doesn't really make it more so. I also felt that a couple times the author sort of cheated by not telling you some stuff about some characters.
That said, it's still an engaging, fast read, and the portrait of Vegas in the 50s, written at the time, is compelling.
October 3, 2008
Blah. Slightly bad run for Hard Case of late. This is a tightly plotted Vegas noir with some good period sleaze, but hampered by a ridiculous female character for whom "cartoon" would be an improvement; since we're supposed to root for the tough operator guy who runs his own casino (against mob pressure), it really, really doesn't help to saddle him with this childish he-man relationship with a schoolmarm type with a secret or two. Good, visceral gambling scenes, but I demand at least a little semblance of life outside of them.
July 5, 2014
Grading this pulpster novel on the curve. Didn't expect Raymond Chandler, didn't get him, but it was fun to read about 1950s California and Las Vegas. The big ridiculous conceit the author insists on is that there is such a thing as a skill to playing Craps. Such that if you're really good, as are the protagonist and antagonist, you can grind your way to hundreds of thousands.
I read most of this poolside in Vegas, so yes, it was fun.
I read most of this poolside in Vegas, so yes, it was fun.
September 13, 2015
The best part of this book is arguably the picture of 1950s Las Vegas that it provides. Each chapter begins with a little tidbit about gambling or some piece of Vegas culture or history (e.g., racism in casinos, except for one famous casino). The better place to begin with Fisher is "I Wake Up Screaming," if only for its great title.
April 11, 2009
A flawed novel that had a good start, a good premise, but in the end faded out in the last few chapters with a cheat of an ending. Still, it's a good look at what Vegas was like in the 50's and the prose is amazingly fast paced.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews