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Chronicling the decades of decadence, celebrity shenanigans and political corruption, as well as the glitz and glamour of the casinos that pass for the everyday in Las Vegas, this lively and entertaining book establishes that what happens in Vegas doesn't necessarily always stay in Vegas.


Underneath the city's present success lie many infamous tales of excess and debauchery. Using new information from recently released FBI docuemnts, Jeff Burbank brings to life the Vegas mob in its heyday, recounting never-before heard tales of the mobsters who made Vegas what it is today.


But mobsters aren't the only ones with skeletons in Las Vegas's closet. Over the years, Hollywood stars have had their share of the limelight. Burbank has uncovered the many fateful, and often amusing, incidents that have befallen the glamorous and here he recalls the details of the darkest moments in the lives of the famous and the foolish such as Marilyn Monroe's quickie divorce; boxer Sonny Liston's secret heroin deal just before his death; The Doors singer Jim Morriosn's arrest for fighting on the Strip; comic Lenny Bruce's hilarious onstage run-in with singer Pearl Bailey; the Vegas drug
store that sent drugs and syringes to Elvis Presley almost anywhere he wanted; and the hookers who trick-rolled comedian Tommy Smothers in his Strip hotel room.


Also featured are the stories of everyday-people such as casino workers, small business people and random travellers who found their lives turned upside down by Las Vegas's temptations. With fast-paced and entertaining prose, Burbank captures the true stories from Las Vegas's seedy underbelly that have led to the world's fascination with the aptly-named Sin City.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeff Burbank, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in the


Washington Post, Los Angeles Times,


the


New York Daily News,


the


Boston Globe


and


Newsweek.


He has won the Outstanding Journalist Award from the Nevada Press Association, is the author of


License to Steal


and is a commentator for KNPR-FM radio in Las Vegas where he lives.

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