The Kings of Vegas by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack
The Kings of Vegas is the fourth work of fiction co-written by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman, authors of the highly praised 2013 novel Freud’s Mistress — and its roots are personal. When Karen Mack’s grandfather, Nate Mack, moved to Las Vegas in 1929 at the beginning of the Great Depression, the population of this dusty desert town barely topped 2300. All that changed, though, when construction on the Hoover Dam began Las Vegas’s transformation into a gambling and entertainment mecca.
Owner of the small casino The Jackpot, Nate Mack raised his family as the city expanded around them. Her father Jerome was a land developer, banker, philanthropist and the president of two casinos, Four Queens and Riviera. Casinos were family owned, and many offered 99 cent shrimp cocktails, loss-leader cheap buffets, cheap thrills with penny and nickel slot machines and inhibition-releasing free alcohol in abundance. After experiencing a childhood filled with colorful characters including entertainers, showgirls and more than a few gangsters, Karen graduated from Las Vegas High School before attending college and law school at UCLA. Suffice it to say Karen Mack has intimate acquaintance with Las Vegas.
Prodigal Daughters and Inadequate Sons
Powerful memories and vivid descriptions were mined and funneled into this exciting, action-packed thriller. Power plays among ambitious siblings are exposed when their casino mogul father, Roy King, succumbs to a sudden heart attack. Prodigal daughter and protagonist Josie King was sent to Los Angeles after high school for her education and protection. Before she could even read, she demonstrated uncanny abilities as a math savant and blackjack prodigy, instinctively and infallibly adept at counting cards in multiple decks, allowing her to win consistently. Summoned back to Las Vegas after a 17-year absence for the funeral and reading of the will, Josie assumes she will soon return home to her successful career as a forensic accountant and her twelve-year-old daughter Billie. But even posthumously, patriarch Roy, King both in name and Vegas royalty, was not willing to relinquish control of the business he created and the millions it generated. To receive their inheritance, the siblings are required to reside in Nevada and work together for three years in the family casino. Siblings Sam and Josie also received the life estate benefit of allowing them to reside in the family home until their deaths.
Currently managing the now floundering casino is elder brother Frank, awash in debt from his out-of-control gambling addiction. Displaying little interest in the casino business, Roy’s first daughter Sunny’s primary passion is riding horses in the English equestrian style and has invested her share of family distributions in a grand horse ranch with an elaborate air-conditioned indoor arena for her prized hunters and jumpers. Her proclivity to shop for high-end designer apparel, driven by fashion and marketing sense, will make the casino’s new boutique a success with high rollers. Easy-going, good-looking wastrel Sam has little interest in any type of work, sleeps late, parties, drinks and consumes a variety of drugs in close combat with his own demons. Josie, the youngest child, has remained close to Sam whom she has adored since childhood and longs to help him gain sobriety and purpose.
Crime and Surveillance in Sin City
Although Frank King remained titular CEO, his multi-million gambling debt to the mob forces him to fire loyal casino staff and place security and everyday management into the hands of well-groomed NYC gangster Lionel and his thugs. Lionel proceeded to skim millions from the control room where the day’s cash was processed, along with rare art used in money laundering schemes. In addition to the eye-in-the sky observation catwalk already hidden in the casino, Lionel had cameras installed in the King siblings’ homes, bugged their phones, hacked their computers, and planted tracking devices on their vehicles. Josie’s forensic accounting knowledge made her an enemy and a liability this ruthless, violent man was eager to dispose of. Additionally, the FBI was determined to ferret out suspected money laundering and tax evasion.
Josie, the baby of the family, takes on the Feds, the mob and her family to wrest control of The Jackpot from her weak-willed brother Frank who has betrayed their legacy. She places herself in mortal danger to regain one of the most luxurious casinos in Las Vegas while simultaneously beginning a hot romance with a rival casino owner. Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman earn full marks for this electrifying drama containing sex, drugs, alcohol and untold wealth in an iteration of that oft-quoted adage “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” This thrilling family tale is a gift ripe for plucking by the right filmmaker.
Jennifer Kaufman is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and a two-time winner of the national Penney-Missouri Journalism Award. Jennifer has co-authored four books with Karen Mack: most recently, The Kings of Vegas, which is currently in development with M Studios. Kaufman and Mack’s third novel, Freud’s Mistress, received four stars from People magazine and was on USA Today’s, Vanity Fair’s, and Marie Claire’s best summer reading list for 2013; Their second novel, Literacy and Longing in L.A., reached #1 on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List and won the Best Fiction Award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. Jennifer lives in Los Angeles with her family.
Karen Mack, a former attorney, is a Golden Globe Award-winning film and television producer. She has co-authored four books with author Jennifer Kaufman: most recently The Kings of Vegas, reviewed by Publisher’s Weekly as “a suspenseful and entertaining trip to Sin City.” Previous books include Freud’s Mistress, which received four stars from People and was on USA Today, Vanity Fair, and Marie Claire’s best summer reading lists; Literacy and Longing in L.A., which reached #1 on the Los Angeles Times Bestseller List and won the Best Fiction Award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association; and the Los Angeles Times bestselling novel, A Version of the Truth. Karen lives in Los Angeles with her family.
