Living Las Vegas

Real Life in the Shadow of the Strip

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Cheesecake and Crime: What a Concept

When I went to Bouchercon, the annual mystery convention, last September, I was expecting to meet mystery writers and fans from around the globe. Even though it was held in Anchorage, Alaska, the gathering drew a nice multitude of crime fiction devotees. I met writers from New York and London, fans from North Carolina, Hawaii and everywhere in between.

And then there was Pamela Mains. Armed with business cards and fliers adorned with a slinky babe holding a gun and a pink box, Pamela was promoting her new bookstore-cum-bakery called “Cheesecake and Crime.” She’d come to Bouchercon to let authors know there would soon be a new venue for book events in … I waited to hear where Pamela was from. Baltimore, I figured, or maybe Seattle. Anywhere but …

“Las Vegas,” she said.

What? Did I hear right?

“Well, Henderson, actually, because we’re just over the line.”

Yes, I had traveled to the Far North to learn that an independent bookstore — one of America’s most endangered species — would be hatching not only in my city, but less than two miles from my front door.

A few months later, Cheesecake and Crime opened its doors. The timing helped stave off bookstore extinction, because Mandalay Bay had just announced the impending closing of The Reading Room, the only bookstore on The Strip and one of the few independent bookstores in Las Vegas.

As she had promised in Anchorage, Pamela immediately began hosting book signings, reading groups and film screenings in the store, which she had decorated in an inviting blend of modern Vegas and a vintage game of “Clue.” Comfy chairs and good coffee have made it a popular “third place.” Or maybe it’s the culinary skills of Pamela’s husband, Lendall, that are keeping those chairs occupied. He’s the one in the back turning out cheesecakes in more flavors than Baskin-Robbins, and “give me 48 hours, and I’ll make any flavor you want.”

Last month I attended an event at Cheesecake and Crime, a panel discussion with Las Vegas authors Steve Grogan and Dennis Griffin. Grogan spoke about his new novel “Vegas Die,” a whodunit with an added attraction: Woven into the story are clues to the location of a silver dagger worth $25,000. The dagger is hidden somewhere in the Las Vegas metropolitan area and, if sales numbers are any indication, hundreds of treasure hunters are scouring the valley already in hopes of finding the prize. Grogan also has another “Quest Mystery” in the works. “Nevada Craps,” scheduled for release in 2009, will contain clues to more hidden treasure.

Although retired private investigator Dennis Griffin writes about real events and people from Las Vegas’ colorful past, his books often read like fiction. He regaled the audience with stories about researching his true crime books, including “Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness.” Shortly after “Cullotta” hit the bookshelves, Griffin was contacted by the girlfriend of another vintage mobster, and she’s not the only one with memories to share. Now that he’s made a name as a Vegas biographer, Griffin could probably line up enough writing projects to keep him busy for the next couple of decades.

On June 14, I’ll be attending another event at Cheesecake and Crime, the store’s first champagne-and-dessert whodunit evening. Cheesecake … crime … and now champagne, too. If dessert can underwrite the success of a bookstore, I’m all for helping it happen.

If Cheesecake and Crime is successful in its spot on the south side of Las Vegas, the Mainses plan to franchise the concept. I like to imagine the day when a Cheesecake and Crime opens in Manhattan. “Whodunit?” happy patrons will ask, and they’ll find it unbelievable that a concept for a successful 21st-century bookstore originated in … Las Vegas?

But as every mystery reader knows, the perpetrator is always the one you’d least suspect.