Book Summary IV (The Battle for Las Vegas: The Law vs. The Mob)




A fairly interesting read about the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) or Metro and their ability to combat the mafia. From the seventies up until about the mid-seventies.
Or at least the majority of it is. It talks about the local police force in Las Vegas before became unified under Metro. And enjoy a certain sergeant McCarthy. Before that it was a highly corruptible shadow of the police force that let the local Mafia Get Away with just about anything.

By all accounts the name of the book should be: The exploits of Tony Spilotro and Deputy sheriff John McCarthy. A confrontation to ensue.
but I understand that that's not a very catchy title.

The book for the most part just goes through the various historical details of the Mafia's influence into Las Vegas and how the Las Vegas Police Force has to deal with em. A lot of times with help from the FBI, (although even that's not entirely true as there's a point when Las Vegas police force is so low down on the trustworthy level that they weren't even given information from other counties and certainly not from other states.)

In a lot of ways it's a story about Redemption, about McCarthy picking up a shattered broken Vegas and trying his best to repaint the city in a better image. An especially difficult task when the mafia and the words ''Sin City'' are engraved in your town. He also lost out in the long run because other people who competed against him. )Running on more populous Solutions. Such as prostitution, which was a pretty big prom in Las Vegas for a Time, But nowhere near the detriment of the mafia.
It also goes on about the skimming operation performed by the mafia to take money off the top of the casinos without the books knowing it and shipping it off to Chicago to the real mobsters. And that's about it, for the most part it's just short stories about various police actions and Mafia schemes. It goes into details about Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal** and Tony Spilotro. There's some fun exploits involving the ''Hole in the Wall Gang''. Back when they were irrelevant thing. If you're a fan of the mafia, police drama or of the film Casino then there's a lot to like here.
It's well-written and less than 300 Pages, making it a light read.

It's raining style comes off as mainly factual, with a slight hint of Romanticism. It's a total reverse of Mario Puzo likes to focus more on the spectacle with a Sprinkle of History.

One of the things I found noteworthy was that there was a police force for Las Vegas city and the Las Vegas Strip was actually commissioned under Clark County.

*No relations (as far as I know) to Senator Joseph McCarthy

**Did you know that ''Lefty'' had a TV show Once, it had people like Frank Sinatra and OJ Simpson on it. It's the weirdest thing and I would love to find it. Unfortunately out of all the things that seem to survive down to the Internet this show is not one of them. Or if it is it's so obscure that I just simply can't find it.

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