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Summary
Summary
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Predators
For more than five decades, bestselling author Harold Robbins has thrilled millions of readers with tales heavy in action, ruthless characters, international intrigue, and the sexiest people ever captured in print.
Now in Sin City, he takes us to a town famous for all these, Las Vegas.
Jack "Lucky" Riordan is anything but lucky. The illegitimate son of Howard Hughes, he and his mother are cast out of Las Vegas when Hughes learns of the pregnancy, only for Jack to return years later to make his fortune.
Jack might not have luck. But he has an eye for a quick con. His skills soon allow him to climb the ladder as head of security for one of Glitter Gulch's most ruthless casinos, where cheating will get you jail, if you're not crippled by security first.
Jack sees it all: the corruption of fast money, the ways his friends will stab in the back for a shot at a jackpot, and the allure of women who will do anything to hit the big time.
But the big time in Vegas always comes at a cost . . . and Jack is about to learn the price of life in Sin City .
Author Notes
Harold Robbins was born in New York City on May 21, 1916. He later claimed to be a Jewish orphan who had been raised in a Catholic boys' home, but in reality he was raised in Brooklyn by his father and stepmother. He made his first million at the age of twenty by selling sugar for wholesale trade. By the beginning of World War II, he lost all his fortunes. He eventually moved to Hollywood and worked for Universal Pictures.
His first book, Never Love a Stranger, was published in 1948. He began writing full time in 1957. He published more than 20 books during his lifetime including The Dream Merchants (1949), The Betsy (1971), The Storyteller (1982), and The Carpetbaggers (1961). His novel, A Stone for Danny Fisher (1951), was adapted into a 1958 motion picture King Creole starring Elvis Presley.
He died from respiratory heart failure on October 14, 1997 at the age of 81. Since his death, several new books have been published, written by ghostwriters and based on his notes and unfinished stories.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Though questions linger about just how much Robbins (1916-1997) contributed to the later books published under his name, this posthumous novel moves quickly and is great fun, a roman clef reminiscent of his early bestselling bildungsromans Never Love a Stranger (1948) and A Stone for Danny Fisher (1952). Packed with vintage Robbins boudoir scenes, it follows a street-smart youth clawing and copulating his way to wealth and power. Born Howard Hughes Jr., the bastard son of the famous multimillionaire recluse, Zack Riordan comes to Vegas in 1966 at age 12, and 12 years later has become the youngest casino security chief on the Strip. The narrative follows Zack's career as he gets involved in a vicious rivalry with the wastrel son and snooty Vassar-educated daughter of his mentor, Con Halliday, the aging owner of the casino Zack has helped save from ruin. When Zack is unceremoniously fired, he crosses continents to cut deals with Chinese criminal elements in Hong Kong and to parlay his quick wits and daring into enough money to finance his own casino, unwinding from hard days of sordid financial exploits by bedding one beautiful woman after another. Returning home, Zack discovers that he has a son by his former mentor's daughter, and finds himself wondering if he has paid too high a price for wealth and power. Those Robbins fans who haven't already fallen by the wayside will be rewarded for their devotion with this unexpectedly lively offering. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Hormonal Harold, hale and hearty though dead since 1997, returns with his fourth-and-a-half postmortal novel. We number 2001's Never Leave Me as a half, since it's a reprint of Avon's censored 1954 paperback, the lust and sex restored by Forge. All right, Harold's estate offers this Robbins idea-taken from "a rich heritage of novel ideas and works in progress"-now fleshed out from that big Sin City where, doubtless, Harold's ghost instructs the Devil on joys of of the blowjob and how to run a string of call girls. Well, Harold is a winner here, because his ghost writes better than he did. Tight-packed plot and inside detail on gambling cheats in Las Vegas give off blue rocket-fire. Zack Riordan is the bastard child of Howard Hughes and Betty Riordan, at 22 a pretty, tip-hungry waitress whom the skeletal Hughes has up to his room for a twenty-minute servicing. When she returns to Vegas with three-month-old Howard Hughes Jr., as she wants to name him, Hughes's bodyguards pay her off and run her out of town. So baby becomes Zack Riordan. As a kid he runs a rag trade, handing out posters for the lesser gambling joints. Then a heavy-hitter from Chicago kills Betty, and Zack leaves town. He returns much wiser, falls in with lowlife gambling wizards who know everything about cheating, and at 23 works his way up to being the youngest security manager in Vegas, being given Con Halliday's casino to manage. When Con's daughter Morgan fires him, he rapes her, joins a Chinese gangster in Macao, gets into global gambling, returns to Vegas with $5M, finds he's father to Morgan's child, and marries her. Then he builds the $100M Forbidden City, Sin City's biggest trap. Seminal Robbins. A killer. The pages go whoosh.
Booklist Review
Robbins' death in 1997 hasn't kept him from publishing, as many of the works-in-progress he left behind have been completed by author or authors unknown. In the latest, the overblown machismo has been toned down, but the style is still Robbins' and the story is still populated with the usual Robbins characters: wealthy, beautiful people; sexy but submissive women; and the hero, a handsome, poor, tough guy who makes it big. Jack "Lucky" Riordan is the illegitimate and unwanted son of millionaire Howard Hughes, exiled from Las Vegas to face a hardscrabble existence. The tale begins in the 1960s when an adult Riordan returns to Vegas, seeking his fortune in the gaming industry. His street smarts stand him in good stead as he shrewdly acquires wealth and power. As usual, the plot is spiced up with loads of fantastical sex and nymphomaniacal women, but this time Mob entanglements and backstabbing friends add a little twist to the story. Robbins' faithful fans will be lining up for this one. --Kathleen Hughes