Coming to Las Vegas: A True Tale of Sex, Drugs & Sin City in the '70s

Carolyn V. Hamilton arrives in Las Vegas in 1973 to join a circus. When that job doesn't work out, she opens the new MGM Grand Hotel/Casino as a cocktail waitress. This turns out to be more involved than a nice Lutheran girl from Seattle would think: parties, stealing, sex, drinking and drugs are the main entertainment for a bored crew of casino employees. Some waitresses date culinary union bosses, who have their own high drama of payoffs, fights for control, fire bombings and an 18-day culinary union strike. Each story told in this memoir-of the Martin Scorsese Casino era of Las Vegas-is true, and many are humorous as well as outrageous. Carolyn V. Hamilton's memoir of her time as a Las Vegas cocktail waitress is told with uncommon candor, humor, and insight. Her stint at the world's largest hotel-casino, in a city on the verge of explosive growth and unending controversy, is a blend of Hollywood casting couch, 2 Broke Girls, and Fear and Loathing. It reads as fast as the characters she profiles. Jack Sheehan, author of Skin City: Uncovering the Las Vegas Sex Industry, and five other non-fiction books on modern Las Vegas history.