Carrie Vaughn, _Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand_ (kindle)

[walkitout]

Can anyone please explain to me what that title refers to?

Kitty and Ben go to Las Vegas. She's going to do the show live in front of an audience AND it will be televised. Conveniently scheduled for when she's in town to get married. Which her parents will be attending. While there, Ben discovers he's _really_ good at poker now -- and uncovers and narcs out a ring of cheats, which turns around and kidnaps him, thus throwing off the wedding. In the course of finding Her Mate, Kitty turns up a bunch of other weirdness.

But I have no idea where the Dead Man's Hand comes in.

Mildly entertaining, but don't start the series here.

Comments

[kaneda-khan.livejournal.com]

It's a notorious poker hand, if that helps any.

[flinx.livejournal.com]

Umm, at any point, did a poker-playing character wind up with a hand of two pair: aces & eights? That's apocryphally the hand Wild Bill Hickok held when he was shot playing poker...

there was a Texas Hold 'Em tournament

[walkitout]

That Ben was playing in, caught the cheaters in, got kidnapped from. I do not recall whether any hands were specified (honestly, I do tend to blow right over that kind of description -- sorry!).

Thanks to you both for the explanation! That was very helpful.

ETA: There's also a gun convention in town in the same hotel Ben and Kitty are staying in. Kind of a two-fer. On an unrelated note, in _At Grave's End_, there's a character who might well have been intended to be Doc Holliday.