cardsharp

Intricate pre-plotted plays befuddle defences with a blizzard of runners, while they shift the ball with a cardsharp's speed and dexterity.

But their plan to create an army of South American cardsharps had a fatal flaw: Neither of them spoke Spanish.

We meet newly married Minna, the daughter of German immigrants, and her husband, Robert, a police officer more used to dealing with cattle thieves and cardsharps than lost boys.

Watch her closely, the way you might watch the hands of a fast-dealing cardsharp, and be rewarded: a perfect, tiny can-you-believe-this eye roll here, a feline smile melting into laughter there.

He lived in his own, strange world populated by hobos, French Canadians, cardsharps, trappers, a pig with a wooden leg, farmers, hooligans, and, for reasons no one will ever understand, Frank Stallone.