The Literate Kitty

Ahh, Las Vegas... a place unlike any other. The inescapable, mega-watt glitz of colorful lights blinking 24/7,  against a crazy, ever-present backdrop of electronic slot machine "music"... glamour, both ersatz and genuine, in the showy hotel facades with their exotic themes and lavish decor, and the exclusive designer shoppes tucked within their cavernous interiors... feather-and-glitter-clad cigarette girls and hostesses, rubbing elbows on the casino floors with cargo-shorts-and-flip-flops-wearing visitors and suit-wearing conventioneers... and all of it found every day of the year in a little desert oasis. Love it or hate it, it's something you've got to experience at least once. Me, I love spending time there, for the sensory overload and feeling of escape. It isn't always feasible to go on a little road trip (or long plane ride, as the case may be) to indulge in all that is Vegas, though... which is why I enjoy Deborah Coonts' ongoing series set in Sin C...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn’t it? Sometimes, though, it makes total sense. Take, for instance, Las Vegas-native Lucky O’Toole’s equal parts charmed and cursed life. [If you haven’t been a party to her various Sin City exploits yet, then by all means dash on over to my earlier reviews, here , and go from the bottom post up, before reading any further.] Recently promoted to Vice President of Customer Relations--a euphemism for Problem Fixer Extraordinaire, which entails at least as many headaches as it sounds like--at the esteemed Babylon hotel, Lucky still has no “life” to speak of (unless your idea of such means “all work”, in which case she has it in spades). She races around the hotel (often on a pair of highly-unsuitable stiletto heels) putting out fires at all hours of the night and day--placating the occasional less-than-happy guests, unruffling disgruntled employee feathers, and juggling the needs of the various cont...

Oh, to be one of those lucky ducks who gets all the “perks”... the to-die-for designer wardrobe (complete with smokin’ hot shoes and the coolest “it” bags)... the spacious high-rise apartment (with a stellar view)... 24/7 access to a stable of the hottest sports cars around... a choice of the finest cuisines and wines to be found... even rubbing elbows with the rich-and-famous on a regular basis. Pretty awesome, right?  Nothing comes without a price, though... something which no one is perhaps more aware of that than professional casino “fixer” Lucky O’Toole, back for equal parts fantastic fabulosity and treacherous troubles in author Deborah Coonts‘ latest, So Damn Lucky . (By the way, if you haven’t read the first two books in the series yet, you can find my reviews for them here  and then here .)                            ~  ♠  ♣  ♥  ♦  ~ Lucky’s typical day can best be summed ...

I am, admittedly, something of a slave to research. That comes as no great shock, I know; we quiet, “bookish” ( ugh! ) folk are just sort of made for spending hours cooped up in libraries or in front of computers, compiling endless lists of data for later tabulation, consideration, and regurgitation. Case in point? I spent two semesters in college-- working for minimum wage, 20 hours a week, mind you --cooped up alone in a glorified closet (okay, scratch the “glorified” part, because it wasn’t), painstakingly wading through roll after roll of grainy, eye-numbing microfilm, trying my best to decipher shakily-handwritten copies of wills, bills of lading, and other documents from the late 1600s and early 1700s, cataloguing each and every single possession of the individual (down to the mended sock or mismatched set of spoons) bequeathed, inventoried, and otherwise mentioned therein... all in the name of research. And the kicker? I. Loved. That. Job. Fortunately for those not so-inclined...

In a city that never sleeps, there’s always something going on--whether it’s something fun, exciting, sad, unbelievable, scary, dangerous, sexy, or weird (and that’s just for starters). Most of us wouldn’t expect to experience all of them in a 24-hour period, though. Then again, no other city is quite like Las Vegas... that glitzy-against-all-odds desert playground where all bets are off when it comes to finding oneself in crazy situations.   ~ ✩ ~ ✩ ~  ✩ ~ ✩ ~ ✩ ~ Last year, newcomer Deborah Coonts whetted our appetites with her delicious delight of a debut, Wanna Get Lucky --a rollicking-good-time of a mystery set in Sin City. (Haven't read it yet? Check out my review, here. ) Now, she’s serving up a tasty second course with Lucky Stiff, which picks up the action a couple months later.  Long-suffering, thirty-something head of the prestigious Babylon hotel’s customer relations department, Lucky O’Toole, is still doing what she does best... racing around on high heels,...