Book Recommendation: The Battle for Las Vegas

Posted on 07/19/2018 by Pisaries Creator

“I always had trouble when I was playing with government money.”

-Emmett Michaels-

Publisher: Huntington Press

Publication: July 1, 2006

Page Number: 256

I couldn’t post four blogs worth of photos and not recommend a book regarding the whole mob and law relationship in Las Vegas. Long before I plucked this book off the shelf and when I should’ve been doing any other thing but buying another book, I was in high school reading about the Mafia. Flash forward to today. The author, Dennis N. Griffin, stated he wouldn’t have written it if he found himself regurgitating information from his other books, which is always an indicator of a good writer. I opened it up and looked to see how many chapters there were and approximately how long they were too. Eventually how long they were didn’t matter and didn’t care to find a bookmark either because I remembered where I left off each time. The book began with a brief history of Las Vegas, eventually coming to the story of Tony Spilotro and Frank Rosenthal. They were two of the major players, but obviously more come out the shadows as they continue to work together. The other side of the fence would be the law enforcement agencies trying to come together against a common enemy. The book reads much like a MMA fight you would watch today: two powerful forces butting heads and neither backing down. The only difference in regards to this story is there was friction within and between the two parties: mob and law. It’s about as objective writing as you can get, no chapter leaning right or wrong or one group being better than the other. Griffin delivered a factual, concise true story about the battles within Las Vegas during the early 1980s that not only affected the two parties but the people who called it home.

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