Viva Las Vengeance: An Elvis Mystery - Paperback

by Daniel Klein (Author)

"It doesn't seem likely that a man would murder his wife and then just crawl back into bed and go to sleep, does it?"

1964. Elvis Presley is in Las Vegas for a little R&R before starting his next picture, Roustabout. But the King's work is never done. Before long, Elvis finds himself up to his neck in the hunt for a killer.

A tourist turns up ritualistically murdered at one of Las Vegas's preeminent wedding chapels, and Elvis can't help falling into the middle of an inept police investigation. Just before the tourist's death, the Sahara Casino comedian, Howie Pickles, had singled her out for insulting jibes during his show. The rumor spreads all over town that Pickles's gags are deadly.

A second tourist is murdered and conspiracy theories multiply: Is it a hotel and casino war? A feud between local wedding chapels? A fight between Sin City's major brothels?

Elvis finds himself falling in love with a beautiful dancer living in a commune for faded showbiz characters. He also discovers that a born-again Christian group in town is hailing him as the Second Coming.

As the death toll mounts, Elvis forms an unlikely alliance with a pill-popping, enlightenment-seeking Harvard dropout, a Southern belle turned high-class prostitute . . . and the immensely annoying Howie Pickles himself.