The Search for the Dice Man

Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers

The book is set 20 years after the end of The Dice Man, and Luke's dicechild, Larry Rhinehart, has grown up to become a hotshot investor on the stock market. He has totally rejected his father's reverence for chance: he sees it as an adversary to be overcome, and has managed to create a stable, normal life for himself, in spite of his early abandonment. Indeed, he is due to wed the daughter of his boss, and live wealthily ever after.

This state of affairs would make a dull story and soon his father's ghostly presence intervenes. He gets approached by the FBI, who are trying to trace his father's location, and find out whether he's alive or dead. Though Larry naturally refuses to have anything to do with the FBI, he soon starts to pursue his own investigations. He is financed in this by his fiancée's father, who wants to put the whole dice business to rest, and is accompanied by his fiancée's sister, an unreformed hippy.

It takes a long time - a whole book in fact, but Larry eventually does complete his quest. Along the way, what he sees and hears change his views somewhat; by the end of the book it is he who is trying to convince Luke, his father, to accept more chance into his life, rather than the other way round.

Many adherents of the earlier 'Dice Man' adventures, however, felt that, written by an author who has perhaps mellowed with age, the book is just not quite as good as the original.

Other books by George Cockcroft with the same themes: The Dice Man, Adventures of Wim, The Book of the Die

The book has been published various times:

• ISBN 0-00-223-937-X - June 7, 1993
• ISBN 0-58-621-515-8 - October 10, 1994
• ISBN 0-00-651-391-3 - May 5, 2000