Book excerpt: In The third man, Rollo Martins is in corrupt postwar Vienna, seeking "to discover the almost unbearable truth about his old friend Harry Lime." In Loser takes all, "Its narrator, Bertram is a quiet assistant accountant about to be married for the second time, but when a director of his firm whimsically offers both wedding and honeymoon in Monte Carlo, and Bertram (always good with numbers) goes to the casino with a system that really works, he suddenly finds himself in a surprising contest of love and money."--Jacket.