Clunky pacing and cartoonish characters weigh down Vincent's third crime thriller, set in Las Vegas in 1980. Amid efforts by Nick Conti, the producer and chief writer of The Strip
, a popular PI TV series, to keep the local Mafia from interfering and getting a cut of the show's action, Conti finds time to do it all. He negotiates with Hollywood moguls, soothes wounded TV star egos, offers his irresistible self up to fawning actresses and slugs it out with mobsters with names like Carlo and Fats. The rapid-fire two- and three-page chapters give the book a cut-and-paste feel that may work on film, but leaves readers with too little explanation for what just happened. Worse, most of the characters talk the same way—clipped, jaded and very, very with it. Himself a former writer and producer at Spelling Productions, Vincent (Mafia Summer
) includes many real-life details and personages from Vegas's past, but the result is a story that reads like a superficial TV script. (Jan.)
