JP POMARE The Gambler. Reviewed by Viv Ronnebeck

JP Pomare’s eighth novel explores the intersection of gambling, AI, and politics in a masterful thriller that keeps you guessing.

The Gambler opens with an incongruous, unsettling scene in an Amish community. The connection to everything that follows remains tantalisingly opaque until the novel’s final stages, and that restraint is a signal of what kind of thriller this is: one that trusts its readers, withholds its hand, and earns its revelations.

The Gambler is the second Vince Reid thriller, following The Wrong Woman (2022). Best known for his dark psychological suspense novels, Pomare demonstrates here that his lean, spare prose is equally well suited to a fast-paced American-set thriller.

Vince Reid is an ex-cop turned private investigator, and when his former mentor Nick brings him what seems like an easy case – a grieving couple wants to understand why a shooter killed their daughter Katie at a political rally before killing herself – Reid takes it for the fast money.

Politically motivated crime and terrorism have been on the rise for the last decade in this country, yet the police quickly rule out any political motivation here. Had more people died, had the carnage been more significant, I wonder if the police would have gone deeper into their investigations.

What follows is anything but straightforward.

Pomare constructs his narrative across multiple perspectives and time periods: Joe, ostensibly a writer pursuing a story about an Amish family in the late 1990s; Katie herself in the period before the shooting, falling for a mysterious white-hat hacker named Jason; a couple called Barb and Ted, who receive increasingly strange sports betting tips by text message. In the present day, there are Katie’s parents, Jan and Paul, searching for answers. And the congressional candidate Ana Gutierrez, who Katie worked for, and whose rally proved so deadly.

That Pomare keeps these threads moving without ever confusing the reader is genuine craftsmanship. He gives us enough answers to stay invested, enough ambiguity to keep every character in the frame. Jason (hacker, gun carrier, perpetually elusive) seems at various points like Reid’s best lead, as well as his greatest threat. And yet. Pomare is particularly skilled at maintaining this uncertainty without resorting to cheap misdirection. We’re never manipulated. We’re simply kept in the dark in ways that feel entirely fair.

Reid is a worthy and compelling protagonist, not least because of his humanity, shown in his commitment to his friends and family, and his instinctive tenacity, borne from the early, violent death of his father. Throughout the case, Reid works hard to balance the needs of his partner, Peyton, and his interactions with his mentor Nick carry the easy familiarity of a long and trusted relationship:

I look at him a moment, and the tension from sitting for hours in the car just disappears. When I accept his handshake, he jerks me into a hug, thumps my back. Still as strong as an ox.

However, as the case becomes increasingly complex and the personal danger mounts, fear compromises Reid’s judgment. Still, he persists, even when he’s not sure who his friends really are.

While the novel opens in the world of politics, what gradually emerges is something more unsettling – a story about technology as a tool of manipulation, operating invisibly beneath the surface of ordinary life. The sports betting texts Barb and Ted receive are its most chilling element, escalating from harmless tips to something far darker as the novel unfolds. In an era of algorithmic manipulation, AI-generated content, and social media exploitation, the idea of ordinary decent people being quietly compromised through a screen feels less like the plot of a thriller and more like a mirror to life. If there are any greater messages Pomare is seeking to convey with this novel (on gambling, on AI, on politics), he cradles them gently, within the captivating intrigue of the narrative.

This is a tightly constructed, propulsive thriller whose final revelation, connecting the Amish prologue, the elusive Jason, the betting texts, and the political rally, lands with genuine precision and satisfaction. Pomare has written a novel that works as pure entertainment while quietly asking uncomfortable questions about technology, trust, and how power has always found new tools to protect itself.

JP Pomare The Gambler Hachette 2026 PB 336pp $34.99

Viv Ronnebeck is a Sydney crime writer. She is currently working on her second novel, a contemporary cosy murder mystery.

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You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.

Tags: AI, Amish, conspiracies, crime fiction, gambling, JP | Pomare, politics, thrillers, Vince Reid series