Floating above the title on the cover of Eric Garcia's slim thriller Matchstick Men is a sticker advising readers to "read next summer's big movie this winter." But the book itself reads as if the sticker were written first. Taking a break from his more-clever-than-it-sounds Anonymous Rex series, a string of mystery novels featuring a detective who's secretly a dinosaur, Garcia plunges into the world of low-level con men and the games they run. Nicolas Cage stars as Roy (or will, at least, in the forthcoming Ridley Scott film), a tired con veteran with a body going to paunch and a mind going in several directions at once. He obsessively checks the burners on his stove several times before leaving the house, but he still manages to bring a profit for himself and his partner Frankie. Their routine gets interrupted, however, when Roy's new therapist helps him contact a long-lost daughter. When the daughter also demonstrates a gift for con games, Roy can't separate his shame from his pride, but feels compelled to steer her away from the life as he prepares to leave it himself. Garcia keeps his prose screenplay-lean, and his brutal efficiency carries the story at a clip that almost masks such flaws as sketchily developed characters and twists that announce themselves several chapters in advance. This last problem is one that Scott and company will have to address if Matchstick Men is to fulfill its sticker-ordained destiny. Cast members Cage, Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman are all capable of filling in their characters' blank spaces, and Scott is more than skilled enough to compensate visually for the story's sub-Mamet command of what makes con men interesting, but the telegraphed plot turns will have to go, particularly when the story's enjoyability depends on whether they remain hidden. Readers with even the most elementary command of foreshadowing and clue-reading should probably wait for that big movie.