The lights are coming down. Frank, Dean, and Sammy are about to take the stage. This is the moment we remember, when Las Vegas became classic. And it was at the Sands. Built in 1952 over the ashes of Hollywood Reporter publisher Billy Wilkerson’s last chance in Las Vegas, the Sands was a collective effort. Underworld figures like Meyer Lansky, Doc Stacher, and Frank Costello provided the cash.

Chicago was the worldwide leader in gangster wars and bootlegging in the 1920s, as Al Capone set the stage for his tremendous success and popularity. When he was safely away in prison, the Chicago Outfit expanded into more rackets involving gambling and loan sharking, making bosses like Paul “The Waiter” Ricca and Tony “Joe Batters” Accardo rich beyond even Capone’s wildest dreams.

Tony Spilotro was the Mob's man in Las Vegas. A feared enforcer, the bosses knew Tony would do whatever it took to protect their interests. The "Little Guy" built a criminal empire that was the envy of mobsters across the country, and his childhood pal, Frank Cullotta, helped him do it. But Tony's quest for power and lack of self-control with women cost the Mob its control of Vegas; and Tony paid for it with his life.

Las Vegas was the Mob's greatest venture and most spectacular success, and through 40 years of frenzy, murder, deceit, scams, and skimming, the FBI listened on phone taps and did virtually nothing to stop the fun. This is the truth about the Mob's control of the casinos in Vegas like you've never heard it before, from start to finish.

All the varieties of power—star, political, sexual, criminal and emotional—are on show in this definitive, untold story of Frank Sinatra and the Mafia. Drawing on an enormous archive of previously unseen records held by international law agencies, the FBI, the CIA and big-city police departments, Rothmiller and Thompson reveal Sinatra’s pact with the Mob in shocking detail. With additional evidence from decades of investigations and testimony, they expose Sinatra’s lifelong association with the Mafia, which he always denied, and its deadly collateral damage.

In July 1983, James Morgan Kane returned home in the evening to find a corpse in his living room. Fearing that he would be held responsible, and sensing that his wife was involved, he wanted to do all he could to protect his young family. Jamie worked through the night to dispose of the body. But his luck ran out days later, as he was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Jamie entered the American prison system and was to stay there for 34 years with stints in San Quentin, Folsom State Prison and the notorious Deuel Vocational Institution in California.

American Oz is a rollicking, gritty, adventurous story of life in the secretive subculture of traveling carnivals. You'll never see your state fair or street festival the same way again. Comerford writes a bold, inspiring true story of a year working behind the scenes with the colorful characters and legends of carnivals. He shares stories of freaks, a carnival pimp, a tramp gold miner, and the last king of the sideshows.

Las Vegas really is unique in so many ways. One of them is that its history, which is short but intense, can be told through the birth and demise of the resorts that dot the Strip, the rise and fall of its casino industry titans. This brief history of the Las Vegas Strip presents every casino hotel built along Las Vegas Boulevard South, the most celebrated and most visited stretch of asphalt on Earth, starting in 1941 with the El Rancho Vegas.

By all accounts, Thomas Gilbert Jr. led a charmed life. The son of a wealthy hedge fund manager and a financier, he grew up surrounded by a loving family and all the luxury an Upper East Side childhood could provide: education at the elite Buckley School and Deerfield Academy, summers in a sprawling seaside mansion in the Hamptons. He was strikingly handsome, moving with ease through glittering social circles and following in his father's footsteps to Princeton. But Tommy always felt different, and the cracks in his façade began to show. 

On October 19, 1965, American Special Forces in Vietnam came under attack at their camp at Plei Me. This marked the first major confrontation between the North Vietnamese and US armies during the war. Throughout six days of constant hostile fire, Captain Lanny Hunter sorted the seriously wounded from the dead and saved those comrades-in-arms he could. For his actions, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. In Exit Wounds, Hunter recalls his tour in the central highlands of Vietnam in 1965/66 at the bloody interface of medicine and combat.

As a child in Montana, Jamie Gehring and her family shared their land, their home, and their dinner table with a hermit with a penchant for murder. But they had no idea the odd recluse living in the adjacent cabin was anything more than a disheveled man who brought young Jamie painted rocks as gifts. Ted was simply Ted, and erratic behavior, surprise visits, and chilling events were dismissed because he was “just the odd hermit”. In fact, he was much more—Ted eluded the FBI for 17 years while mailing explosives to strangers, earning the infamous title of Unabomber.

When Nancy Cooper moved from Canada to Cary, North Carolina, with her new husband Brad, their future was bright. Living in one of the most picturesque towns in the United States, the couple mingled with neighbors, attended parties, and raised two daughters. Then, on July 14, 2008, the façade came crashing down when Nancy's strangled body was found in a storm pond. Nancy's husband claimed that she had gone for a jog and never come back.

On a Thursday morning in May 1961, a well-mannered twenty-one-year-old named Marlene enters the Fifth Avenue apartment of Lee Radziwill to interview for the position of housekeeper and cook. The stylish wife of London-based Prince Stanislaw Radziwill, Princess Lee is intelligent and creative, with ambitions beyond simply jet-setting. But to the public, she is always First Lady Jackie Kennedy's little sister. As Marlene becomes a trusted presence in the Radziwill household, she observes the dazzling array of famous figures who flit in and out of Lee’s intimate circle

The Merchant of Venom traces Don Rickles's career from his rise in the 1950s to a late-in-life resurgence thanks to the Toy Story franchise, his role in Martin Scorsese's Casino, and scores of TV appearances from Carson to Seth Meyers. In the intervening decades, Rickles conquered every medium he worked in, including film, television, and on stage. He was idolized by a generation of younger comedians including Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Jay Leno, and performed in the shadow of a shocking open secret: he was the nicest man in town.

Van Halen's rise in the 1980s was one of the most thrilling the music world had ever seen - their mythos an epic party, a sweaty, sexy, never-ending rock extravaganza. During this unparalleled run of success, debauchery, and drama, no one was closer to the band than Noel Monk. Throughout Van Halen's meteoric rise and abrupt halt, this confidant, fixer, friend, and promoter saw it all and lived to tell. Now, for the first time, he shares the most outrageous escapades.