A former gambling addict escapes his shady past by becoming the priest of a small Catholic church, but finds himself playing another kind of high-stakes game when a vicious crime czar and a crooked archbishop try to close his parish to make room for a new casino.

SYNOPSIS:

Copyright: PAu 3-050-843, R. T. Bowersox

An opening slow-motion dream sequence: a hand picks up a pair of red dice and tosses them down the green felt of a craps table. They tumble to a stop. Snake eyes.

Father Nicholas Cross starts awake in the dim light of dawn, sweat pouring from him, his breath coming hard. He lays motionless several moments, then wipes a tear from his eye, rises, and kisses a picture of a young woman and child, whispering “I’m sorry.”

Thus begins a tale of drama and intrigue as Cross, a former gambling addict who lost everything to the felt and dice – including the wife and young daughter who left him – believes he has found sanctuary and salvation as the priest at the small parish of St. Camillus Catholic Church.

But that sanctuary is assailed when a local underworld gambling czar and a compromised archbishop conspire to raze St. Camillus in order to build a casino that would legitimize the czar’s current clandestine business and enrich them both. That Cross has a history with the gambler and owes him big money further complicates the picture. And a threat to find and harm Cross’s young family only increases the pressure to stay out of the way.

Then a young woman drops off a child at the church, in whose hand is gripped the winning ticket in the recent $300 million dollar Keyball lottery. The woman disappears and is later found dead, leaving Cross holding the temptation of the ticket in one hand, a bible in the other, and the now homeless child hanging onto his vestments.

The intrigue tightens as Father Cross maneuvers to use the lottery ticket to outfox the gambling czar and the archbishop, only to find himself mired in a web more interconnected than he could have imagined. When the confrontation turns violent and one of Cross’s parishioners is left near death, Cross realizes the only way to beat the criminals is to meet them on their own turf and beat them at their own game.

Despite knowing that doing so may drag him back into the blackness of addiction, Cross heads to the underground gambling hall and challenges the czar to a one-on-one game of craps with the stakes being the child, the church, and the ticket.

With faith his only ally, Cross rolls the dice….

No snake eyes this time.

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