Jellybean [Jelly Bean]

212 pp. "...an old-fashioned, rip-roaring adventure story set in the American West following the Civil War. Fast-shooting, fast-shuffling John Paul Valentine (called "Jellybean" for his "smoth gloss") is the terror of the gambling tables in Mt. Holly, Kansas, a settlement so dull that even the Indians are bored by the idea of raiding it. He is also an embarrassing thorn in the side of his foster-father, Dr. Amos Birdwell, a Bible-thumping revivalist minister. Clearly "too big to lick" an unshakable in his determination to avenge his father's murder, the boy is sent away to mellow at a Florida college for gentlemen. There he picks up a degree in law as well as a new set of polished skills with revolvers, rifles, and cards."