Plenty of girls have trouble relating to their parents. Few have to turn to a dictionary for help. Ruby Tuesday Sweet keeps a battered webster's by her side -- but when her dad tunes in to eight baseball games at a time on his wall of TVs, his talk of parlays and chalks and spreads keeps Ruby mystified. Then the Dodgers win the World Series, Ruby Tuesday's dad wins a bet, and his bookie is murdered. Ruby finds herself on the run to Las Vegas with her long-lost rock-and-roll mom in a race against the thugs who want Mr. Sweet's winning ticket. A rare breakthrough novel, Ruby Tuesday is the story of a gambling father, a card-shark grandmother, and a family of women inhabiting a Vegas casino. At the center of it all is the girl who never noticed they were different. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

The risque world of this first novel-big-time sports betting and casino gambling-sets it apart. As the story opens, 13-year-old Ruby Tuesday (named for the Rolling Stones song), has not figured out yet what everyone else in her ritzy hometown of Laguna Heights, Calif., knows: her father, Hollis, is a professional gambler. When Hollis's bookie is murdered, her father is the prime suspect. Ruby's mostly absent mother whisks Ruby away to Las Vegas where they meet up with Nana Sue, Hollis's card-shark mother, who lives in a hotel with her pet iguana Twenty-one, knocking back bourbon. Ruby learns that her father secretly placed a "winter book" bet on the outcome of the 1988 World Series at 40-to-1 odds-yielding a $2 million winning ticket. And the Vegas rumor mill has churned up Larry and Hollis's involvement. A long set-up (Hollis slices off his finger at Ruby's brother's wedding while listening to Game One of the Series) and Ruby's act of revenge on a classmate stall the plot's pacing. But Ruby's adventures-winning at blackjack with her grandmother, chugging Johnny Walker with her mom, meeting a rock star-may attract readers only slightly younger than the author herself, who began this novel as her senior college thesis. Ages 12-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 8-10-Ruby Tuesday Sweet learns about her quirky family during the fall of 1988 when she is 13. Devotion to the L.A. Dodgers is as close as the Sweets get to a religion. Hollis, her father, takes care of Ruby, since her mother, Darlene, prefers cigars, Johnnie Walker, and the Rolling Stones to the responsibility of parenthood. He accidentally amputates his own finger while listening clandestinely to a Dodgers game during his son's oh-so-California beach wedding. Nana Sue is possibly the most unconventional grandmother to hit the pages of middle-grade fiction. She's a tough-talking, hard-drinking, hard-smoking gambler who lives in Las Vegas with her leashed pet iguana. When Ruby's "Uncle" Larry is found murdered and Hollis is arrested for the crime, Ruby learns that her father's work behind the closed doors of his office full of television sets is illegal. He is a handicapper; Larry was his bookie. Darlene roars into town to take Ruby to her grandmother's in Las Vegas, and the adventure begins. The Sweets are a family who put the "fun" into dysfunctional; not much seems to be off limits to them. The humor is a bit dark and edgy. Kids may be as lost as Ruby with the gambling lingo, but appreciate, as she does, all the baseball talk and history. Amid the murder and mayhem, Ruby is an endearing narrator, more mature than the adults whom she so wryly observes around her.-Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information