Nevada’s literary road winds through fascinating country, some of it rough and rutted and much of it seldom seen by the tourist and tenderfoot.

At this time each year, I like to take a road trip through that rich and strange land and offer a few reading suggestions. Just remember, as that old sign of a bygone era warned travelers on the edge of the known world, “Beyond this place, there be dragons.”

And speaking of dragons, Anthony Cabot’s Casino Redux: Unveiling the Global Casino Network of Chinese Organized Crime is a sweeping compendium of stories about the use of casinos from Las Vegas to Macau for the purposes of money laundering and political influence.

Cabot, the longtime Las Vegas-based gaming law expert and author, knows his material and presents it in a straightforward style that sends a clear message that should alarm anyone concerned about the blending of the underworld and upper world in business and geopolitics.

It’s hardly a spoiler alert that many of the stories emanate from or lead back to the Las Vegas Strip, whose titans have long paid lip service to the fight against money laundering while managing to profit from the movement of illicit cash across the green felt. For those of us who have studied this subject and continue to investigate it, it is a welcome addition to the canon.

Many of these stories have been told publicly, but their collective weight is a ringing reminder that overwhelmed Nevada regulators are under pressure to fight to maintain the credibility of an industry that traditionally hasn’t been overly motivated to do that for itself.

Another worthy addition to the gambling bookshelf is David G. Schwartz’s Something for Your Money: A History of Las Vegas Casinos. It takes the reader from the sawdust floor of the earliest gambling parlors to the high-roller salons of the new Strip.

The Las Vegas story is a well-worn subject, and many tales have been told. But Schwartz brings much new material and the academic rigor that reflects his expertise and stature as UNLV’s ombuds and a history professor. It’s the latest in his growing body of work on a subject that continues to fascinate writers and readers alike.

Recalibrate is the oddly titled memoir of illegal bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, whose scandalous career included taking hundreds of millions of dollars in sports bets and blowing much of it across the tables of Strip casinos. (Speaking of money laundering.) This book will interest those who have followed the gambling investigation that ensnared the interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani and has cost Strip casinos such as Caesars Palace and Resorts World millions in fines and much-deserved embarrassment.

Like all compulsive gamblers, Bowyer was gutsy enough to bet big, but not wise enough to manage his bankroll. By Recalibrate, I suspect he really means “double up to catch up.”

Bowyer aims the book to be a tell-all that tracks his rise from hustling nebbish to a major Southern California bookie, but I notice he’s careful not to burn old friends and contacts. In the end, you’ll be left sensing that — give or take a roust by the feds — it’s all showbiz.

I’m willing to bet we’ll be hearing from him again.

Justice is hard to come by in Nevada native Gabriel Urza’s award-winning novel The Silver State, which takes readers inside Reno’s criminal justice system through the eyes of a young public defender who finds the scales he’s heard so much about are anything but balanced in the real world. As I wrote in August, this excellent book is one a young John Grisham might have written if he’d grown up fly fishing on the Truckee and running through the Sierra foothills. The author recently received the $25,000 Spark Award for Oregon Artists from the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation.

Many of the characters who inhabit Casey Bell’s short story collection, Little Fury, go through life largely unseen, haunted by dreams, performing odious jobs that give new meaning to the “graveyard shift.” They largely live out of sight of solid citizens, some on the verge of incarceration, paying a price for the past as they navigate the murky present without much hope for change. This is a gut-punch of a collection that shows a writer in command of her craft. Bell teaches English at UNR and still has time to sing and play the drums in a band called Fine Motor.

From the north comes More than Sheepherders: The American Basques of Elko County, Nevada by Joxe K. Mallea-Olaetxe and Jess Lopategui. Basque sheepherders brought more than their flocks to frontier Nevada. They carried their culture, stories, work ethic and their ability to face the storm of boom and bust through the generations. The book provides a colorful reminder of the contributions the people of the Pyrenees continue to make in Elko and elsewhere across our state.

It’s another bright spot in the University of Nevada Press’ remarkable Basque culture series.

And now, a break in the clouds.

Snow Fleas and Chickadees: Everyday Observations of the Sierra just might be the perfect antidote to our cynical times. Written by Eve Quesnel with illustrations by Anne Chadwick, it has the feel of a thoughtful journal and sketchbook that readers are fortunate enough to stumble upon.

It is a lovely diversion and a reminder that poetic beauty always lies closer to home than we might think. Take to the Nevada road and find some of that beauty for yourself.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family’s Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.