Emerson Drayford is a degenerate gambler with a wealthy wife – a disastrous combination. After squandering much of his wife’s fortune, he seeks escape in drugs, his mistress, and one more high-stakes poker game. But on the journey home, his train crashes and, trapped among the wreckage, Emerson watches the Grim Reaper harvest the souls of the dying passengers around him. When the Reaper comes for him, Emerson does what he has always done best - he gambles. He challenges Death to a single hand of blackjack. If Emerson wins, his life cannot be claimed until he becomes a grandfather; in return, he must never gamble again. Emerson wins the hand but the bargain strips him of the vice that defined him. His life soon collapses into something darker.
Drawn into brutal drug wars in London and New York, Emerson is murdered by a rival, only to discover that Death still cannot touch him. Not yet a grandfather, he is effectively immortal. Armed with this terrible advantage, he launches a campaign of revenge, building power in the criminal underworld while evading the fate waiting at the edge of his bargain. But Emerson’s children are growing up, and their futures threaten his very life.
Forced into a grotesque game of bluff against Death itself, he balances his gangster lifestyle with increasingly desperate schemes to prevent either child from ever having children of their own. As his plans grow more audacious and depraved, Emerson devises one final plot, a way to escape both grandfatherhood and the criminal world for good. For a brief, triumphant moment, he believes he has beaten Death. Then The Grim Reaper returns…
