Blackjack Autumn by Barry Meadow. TR Publishing, Anaheim, CA. $27.95. Hardbound, 255p + index. ISBN 0-945322-03-8.

In 1997 my company, ConJelCo, published a book written by a blackjack card counter who spent eight weeks in Las Vegas and recorded the details of every playing session as he tried to outwit the casinos. Stuart Perry's Las Vegas Blackjack Diary has been a strong seller because it gives an honest portrayal of how difficult it is to make a living at the game.

Barry Meadow's Blackjack Autumn A True Tale of Life, Death, and Splitting Tens in Winnemucca is similar in spirit, yet quite different in execution. Barry set out to play blackjack in every casino in Nevada that has a blackjack table. He, too, recorded the details of his visits to each casino over a two month period.

But he also recorded lots of details about the people he met and the places he visited along the way. The result is sort of a combination of Stu Perry's book and William Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways. (I was going to say Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie...but Meadow did not have a dog along with him.)

I'll get the complaint out of the way first. There is only one and that is that the book is too full of one liners. For instance, in one paragraph we have the following:

• "...against a dealer who busts about as often as Luciano Pavorotti goes on a hunger strike"
• "...with a count higher than Shaquille O'Neal on stilts"

After a while (a short while!) this wears very thin. So it is a testament to Meadow's engaging writing that the reader is willing to put up with the one-liners because the rest of the material is so absorbing.

Meadow enters Nevada, as many from California do, in Primm, heads up to Jean, on to Las Vegas (for the first of two visits), to such places on the (back) road to Reno as Pahrump, Beatty, Tonopah, Minden, S. Lake Tahoe, and Carson City. From Reno it is on to Fallon, Winnemucca (where he does, indeed, split tens), McDermitt, Elko, Wendover, Ely, Mesquite, before venturing back to Las Vegas, Henderson, and winding his trip up on Laughlin.

I won't tell you how he does on the trip, other than to say he wins far more than one would expect given his bankroll, and playing style.

The book is about far more than blackjack though. He talks about the sights that he sees along the way, the ambience of small towns like Beatty, the people he meets, the livestock he meets, the buffets he eats, and much more.

I freely admit that I am a sucker for this kind of book, but I believe that I am not in the minority here. If you like gambling, blackjack, and travel adventure, this is a book you will absolutely want to read.