War was not new to Scott and his mind wandered back to the fear that gripped his heart when he was ordered to "take the point."  But somehow this was different.  Although, no one was shooting at him, his fear of being fired from Royal Motors, was more intense than his fear of dying in Vietnam ever was.  When he was soldiering in Nam he was young and healthy, and now at 54, he was broke, tired, depressed, filled with regrets and one commission away from landing on the street.

His rich menu of mercenary skills guided him through the Color Code Awareness drill.  He learned that white represented a state of obliviousness, orange represented a state of readiness, red represented a state of action, and black represented a state of action completed.  He also learned that this form of mind set was not only vital to his military survival, it was vital to life itself.  he decided there and then that he would never ever live in a state of white again...

He had learned that the best way to run a bluff in a no limit low ball game was to stand pat and bet all that was in front of him.  He knew that if the other players drew cards, the odds were that they would not improve their hand.  He also knew that if he only pretended to look at his cards and that if he did not really know what he had, he would not have to worry about a tell. 

Scott and Lee arrived in Saigon after midnight, January 31, 1968.  They were scheduled to meet with Colonel Shaw at the U.S. Embassy.  As they made their way from the airport towards the Embassy by taxi, all hell broke loose.  The sky was filled with flares and tracers, and the sound of automatic fire could be heard all over...

Set against the danger of the Vietnam War and the high stakes action found in the casinos of Macao and Las Vegas, The Risk Taker is a powerful, poignant, and thought provoking novel.  In the words of the author, risk-taking is not a route for everyone, "it is only reserved for those who dare to play."