Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. Good Old Days
2. Flamingo Fun
3. Subdividing the Valley
4. Everyone’s a Comedian
5. That’s Entertainment
6. The Promoters
7. Crime and Punishment
8. The Gamblers
9. The Bosses
10. The Owners
11. The Stardust
12. The Newspapermen
13. The Skim
14. The Heat Is Turned Off
Epilogue
Index

Excerpt:

Good Old Days
     In the old days, when Eddy Arnold was a great star, Bobby Darin was alive, and Wayne Newton was a little kid, a 50-cent bottle of beer or a 25-cent cup of coffee was all you had to buy to catch the showroom performances. In the Copa Room at the old Sands, you and your date could enjoy cocktails, a New York steak dinner, and a 90-minute show with a full chorus line of beautiful dancers, a well-known singer or comedian, and a big star like Frank Sinatra. For all this, you could pay the check, taxes, and tip and still get change from a $10 bill.

The Dirt Buyers
     Ted Griss was interested in Las Vegas as an up-and-coming travel destination. Griss proposed to buy a mile of highway frontage that was more than a half-mile deep. The land was worthless and gullywashers often turned the area into a dangerous flood zone. Griss paid $1 a front foot for the entire parcel, which worked out to around $5,000. Today, Circus Circus, Slots A Fun, Westward Ho, and the Stardust occupy this “worthless” piece of land.

The Funny Man
     Following his last show at the Riviera, Shecky Greene went to his suite, changed into his pajamas, and pulled on a silk robe. Then he walked to his car, fired it up, and did a very strange thing: He maneuvered the Buick, facing north, into southbound traffic, and drove the mile and a half to the Flamingo backwards. He drove in reverse, keeping pace with heavy traffic, until he backed into the Flamingo parking lot. Greene walked through the casino to one of the busy crap tables, where he stripped off his robe, climbed over the rail, and lay down atop the chips, dice, and cash. He placed the robe under his head as a pillow.

Description:
     Imagine what it must have been like to be in Las Vegas during its most glamorous and eventful years: the 1950s, the 1960s, and the 1970s.
     Back then, "the boys" ran the town, dinner shows were a dollar, and vacant lots on what is now the Strip sold for $5 an acre. Tallulah played baccarat, Shecky shot dice, and Frank dealt blackjack.
     Fly on the Wall chronicles those times, as well as the men and women who shaped them.
     As a reporter for two of the city's most respected newspapers and a publicist for two of the city's most infamous casinos, Dick Odessky was in the thick of it--the proverbial fly on the wall. His recollections of Las Vegas' good old bad old days put you in the thick of it, too.

Reviews/Media Mentions:

Las Vegas Review-Journal, Midwest Gaming and Travel, Big Bear Grizzly, Las Vegas CityLife,Las Vegas Weekly, Blackjack Confidential, Nevada magazine, Gaming Today, The Learning Channel,Casino Player

“Plenty of great anecdotes.”
   —Las Vegas Review-Journal

“Will keep you entranced from the first page to the last.”
   —Las Vegas Weekly

“Recommended to anyone interested in learning the history of Las Vegas.”
   —Big Bear Grizzly