They called him "Ace." Jack Harding was once a poker prodigy, a man who could read a lie in the twitch of an eye or the rhythm of a person's breath. But a devastating, career-ending scandal sent him spiraling from the highest stakes to the lowest rungs of society, where he now works as a cynical private investigator, haunted by the life he lost. He has one rule: never play the cards again.

That rule is shattered when the beautiful and enigmatic widow of a murdered tech billionaire walks into his office. Her husband was killed during "The Alchemist's Table," an illegal, untraceable poker game with a five-million-dollar buy-in. The police are calling it a robbery gone wrong, but she knows the killer was one of the four other players at the table.

Her offer is as desperate as it is dangerous: take her husband's empty seat, survive the game, and use his unique gift to unmask the murderer.

Forced to return to the world that destroyed him, Jack finds himself at a table with four deadly suspects: a Russian oligarch, a sociopathic hedge fund manager, a vengeful old-school gambler, and a silent, hyper-observant protégé. Each has a motive. Each is a master of deception. With a suspicious homicide detective watching his every move and a brutal loan shark holding his life as collateral, Jack isn't just playing for money?he's playing for his life. To find the killer, he must orchestrate one final, life-or-death gamble: The Perfect Bluff.