Fast Eddie Felsen was the best in the country—then walked out on his talent and for the next twenty years ran a pool room, got married, and watched pool games on television. One evening he watches a pool player who reminds him of Fats and the match of his life. When the show ends, Eddie goes to his pool room to play straight pool alone for hours, missing dinner for doing it, playing with the old excitement. And finally he allows himself to feel the feeling that has nagged at him since watching the show on television: "It was grief. The best part of him had died and he grieved for it."

Leaving his pool room and his marriage, Eddie heads out in search of Fats and finds him retired in the Florida Keys. He persuades Fats to join him in a tour of the country playing each other for cable TV. His old nemesis becomes his mentor and encourages him to play eight-ball and nine-ball, and to improve his rusty skill enough to play in the big-money tournaments. Fats dies suddenly on the tour and Eddie goes on the road to hone his game for a tournament in Lake Tahoe where the prize is $30,000. After an uphill battle competing with arrogant young players just as determined to win as he is, Eddie reasserts his supremacy and wins the prize.

"Tevis writes about pool with power and poetry and tension. From the opening scene of this fine book, the reunion between Eddie and Fats twenty years after, the staccato beat of the prose and finely drawn characters grab the reader and don't let go. You don't have to like pool to like this book, to appreciate its sense of living on the edge."

—The Washington Post

The basis for a 1987 feature film starring Paul Newman, The Color of Money is full of tension and rich with deftly drawn characters—every bit as suspenseful and captivating as The Hustler.