The Skin Game

About the Book

"It was the week before Christmas...
and time for the annual raid on Sonia´s whorehouse."

The Skin Game ... and other Atlantic City capers is the story of the days when Atlantic City hit bottom and bet its future on casinos - a story that begins with the robbery of a card game in which gunmen order their victims to strip, then jam them into the men´s room.

Tim Donovan´s first jury trial is the defense of one of the robbers, a 17 year prison veteran who teaches what the law professors didn´t. He learns even more from hookers like nearsighted Mary, who couldn´t spot a cops shoes, and slow-thinking Cindy who wants Donovan to get her baby back.

Woven through the young lawyer´s caseload are Atlantic City´s civic hustlers, angling for the legalization of casinos even as the state police raid the judge´s illegal slot machines at the fraternal lodge and the press breaks the story of a motorcycle cop who sold his police hog to state troopers in an undercover sting operation.

Written with fast-paced humor and underlying sympathy for the law´s victims, Tim Donovan´s clients and their problems make The Skin Game a book that gets you laughing ... and thinking.

"The funniest cast of legal and illegal characters since Rumpole of the Bailey. Joe Wilkins knows Atlantic City like the back of his hand. His stories brim over with the antics of Atlantic City´s hookers, politicians, cops -- and the occasional client who arrives on the back of a garbage truck."

Louis Toscano
author of Triple Cross and
Senior Policy Advisor to
former Atlantic City Mayor
James Whelan