Dec 18 2005

Book Review: Vegas, the Mob, and the Dead Pig on the Dance Floor

by Megan Edwards
Vegas, the Mob, and the Dead Pig on the Dance Floor

Vegas, the Mob, and the Dead Pig on the Dance Floor, by Michael Broderick

The phrase that keeps jumping to mind when I try to sum this book up is “raw material.” Michael Broderick has packed not only the story of his life within these pages, but also quite a bit about the evolution of Las Vegas over the last forty years. No punches are pulled, because Broderick published the book himself, thereby sidestepping any revisions an editor might have suggested. This is both a plus — these are unexpurgated, undiluted memoirs of life in the Mob years in Las Vegas — and a minus — a good editor might have turned this material into a real blockbuster.

Think of this book as a series of conversations with the author rather than a polished literary work. The stories are vivid, beginning with his childhood in Detroit and ending with Broderick’s current entrepreneurial schemes for striking it rich one more time in Sin City. In between, he went from rags to riches and back to rags in true Vegas style, owning an ice cream company and a night club in addition to working in casinos.

Broderick recounts his escapades with celebrities like Frank Sinatra and George Raft. He describes Las Vegas and its neighborhoods before the growth spurt of the eighties. He paints a vivid picture of the drug scene in the sixties and how casinos operated when the Mob ran Las Vegas. Mixed in are adventures as a pilot, a motorcycle rider, and even a house designer. He once created a playboy pad that looked like a cave inside and had an ingenious underwater hiding place for cocaine built into the Jacuzzi.

The wide variety of topics keeps this book entertaining as Broderick rambles through his life story. His descriptions of his early years on the wrong side of the tracks in Detroit and the story about the dead pig on the dance floor are among the best-written in the book. The “Twilight Zone” chapter details his “out of body” experiences, and he has included a sketch of the UFO he swears flew over his house one night. His stories about life in Las Vegas are an eclectic lineup, his subjects ranging from the filming of Viva Las Vegas to a date with a beautiful showgirl whose apartment was such a pigsty that it scared men away. Broderick once tried to file a class action lawsuit over the authenticity of the “Bonnie and Clyde Death Car” on display at a casino in Primm, and he threw a dream birthday party for a little boy dying of cancer. Mixed with the many anecdotes about gambling and working in casinos, the tales unite to form a colorful picture of Las Vegas over the last four decades.

As I read Vegas, the Mob, and the Dead Pig on the Dance Floor, I kept getting the feeling I was listening to the author talk. The book has an easy, conversational style, and the stories ring with authenticity. Broderick himself says there’s a movie in there somewhere, but I think he’s underestimating. Several movies could be made from his material, and there’d still be enough left over for half a dozen novels.

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