Christina Binkley – Winner Takes All: Steve Wynn, Kirk Kerkorian, Gary Loveman, and the Race to Own Las Vegas

From Publishers WeeklyFormer Wall Street Journal reporter Binkley offers this story of the trio of tycoons who took over Las Vegas and transformed it from a crushed-velvet world with a libidinous frontier air into a place where, increasingly and sometimes surprisingly, entertainment and good taste go hand in hand. Binkley provides an inside look at deal-maker Kerkorian, casino visionary Wynn and professor-turned-mogul Loveman and their lavishly competitive lives: their exclusive and aggressive tennis games, the one-way conveyor belt created to transport customers away from a competing casino, the battle to build the biggest and the best. The author shares intriguing details about these power players Wynn has a secret entrance, behind some fake books on a shelf, to a sprawling closet and is also adept at portraying a seedier Vegas, where aged Mafia barons dined on the osso buco at Piero s Italian restaurant, their canes hanging from their chairs. Sometimes her chronology gets a little murky. Still, Binkley offers plenty of nuggets mined from her years on the beat, producing a full, flashy tale of powerful men and their pride, vanity, envy, greed and all the other cardinal no-nos that earned Vegas the name Sin City. (Mar.)