Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion's World Series of Poker (signed)

New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. SIGNED by the AUTHOR directly on the title page (his signature only, NOT personalized to anyone). Near Fine condition in a bright, shiny Very Good dust jacket. The jacket has light shelfwear but NO chips, tears or fading. NOT price clipped ($26.00). Sharp corners. Clean, square and tight. NO owner's name or bookplate. NOT a library discard. NOT a remainder. Pages are clean and unmarked. 2003. First printing with "First edition" so stated and complete number row (13579 10 8642) on the copyright page. Photo illustrated. Bound in the original red boards, with a black spine lettered in bright silver. From the publisher: "Rough sex, black magic, murder, and the science and eros of gambling meet in the ultimate book about Las Vegas James McManus was sent to Las Vegas by HARPER'S to cover the World Series of Poker in 2000, especially the mushrooming progress of women in the $23 million event, and the murder of Ted Binion, the tournament's prodigal host, purportedly done in by a stripper and her boyfriend with a technique so outré it took a Manhattan pathologist to identify it. Whether a jury would convict the attractive young couple was another story altogether. McManus risks his entire HARPER'S advance in a long-shot attempt to play in the tournament himself. Only with actual table experience, he tells his skeptical wife, can he capture the hair-raising brand of poker that determines the world champion. The heart of the book is his deliciously suspenseful account of the tournament itself the players, the hand-to-hand combat, and his own unlikely progress in it. Written in the tradition of THE GAMBLER and THE BIGGEST GAME IN TOWN, POSITIVELY FIFTH STREET is a high-stakes adventure, a penetrating study of America's card game, and a terrifying but often hilarious account of one man's effort to understand what Edward O. Wilson has called 'Pleistocene exigencies' -- the eros and logistics of our primary competitive instincts.". SIGNED by the AUTHOR. First Printing of the First Edition. Hardcover. Near Fine condition/Very Good dust jacket. Illus. by NOT a library discard. 8vo. xxi, 361pp. + 16 plates. Great Packaging, Fast Shipping.