We are excited to share with you the fourth novel we have written together, THE KINGS OF VEGAS. Some describe this book as Succession set in a Las Vegas family casino.
What makes this book unique is the realistic view into the inner workings of the Las Vegas Casino culture from someone who lived and breathed it. That would be me, Karen Mack. My family has lived in Vegas for three generations. My grandfather moved there during prohibition when his whiskey still blew up in LA and he fled to Nevada.
A little history here. It was 1929, Boulder Dam was being built and there was an influx of workers who needed groceries, booze and someplace to blow off steam. My grandfather was happy to accommodate, opening a small ma and pa casino called The Jackpot. Which happens to be the name of the casino in our book.
This was back, before the Wynn, before the Sphere, before hordes of tourists from all over the world descended on this desert city. When cowboys with their silver spurs rode horses down Fremont Street. It was a small town. Everyone knew everyone. As they say, a sunny place for shady people.
So, when people ask me about early Las Vegas, my earliest memories are that my mother used to be embarrassed to tell people we lived there. She said that sometimes people would actually turn their back on her…because they assumed she had to be part of the mob. She wasn’t. I swear.
The characters in our book are based on real people I knew. Our next-door neighbor was Ice-pick Willie, I thought that was a normal name. I went to school with Dave “the man” Berman’s daughter. Likewise, I used to think “the man” was a normal middle name.
As a kid, I would hang out at my father’s casino, climb up to the eye in the sky, in the rafters and look down at the tourists gambling through one-way mirrors–trying to catch cheaters. By the way, they still do that today. Next time you walk into a casino. Look up and wave.
I would also visit the counting rooms where money flew around like cottonwood. Some went here, some went there and some went in duffels to New Jersey or the cayman islands. You get the picture.
And—don’t forget—it was a misogynist world. I remember when I was 12 sitting in the show room with my father, in a big red leather booth and a man walked up right in front of me and asked, can you get me some girls? As if it was a hotel amenity– a mint on their pillow.
As teenagers we raced pickups in the desert. Our French class outing was brunch at the Sahara hotel with our special guests, the Lido de Paris strippers. The Rat Pack hung out at the Sands. Mobsters skimmed the casinos. The FBI tapped our home phone lines. It was, to say the least, a colorful childhood.
The mobsters would say, “I always tried to do the right thing. It wasn’t always the legal thing but it was the right thing.” Or one of my favorite mobster mottos, “You’re either at the table or on the menu.” By the way, remember that one, it comes in handy sometimes.
This is the neon world I grew up in. And the world we created in this book. So many of these outrageous and decadent stories about people who couldn’t afford to lose are incorporated in our novel.
Our book offers people a window into a world where families like mine tried to lead a normal life in a place that was not at all normal. It was glamorous, dangerous, and unlike anywhere else on earth.
Book Synopsis
The main character is Josie, a card-counting blackjack prodigy, who flees the family business and returns to Vegas years later to save her father’s casino. She has to deal with her father’s collapsing empire, sibling betrayal, the mob, of course, and a rise to power in a male-dominated universe. She is a tough and irresistible heroine who is fiercely strategic when she needs to be.
And, by the way, how can you have a book about Vegas without sex? Josie pushes boundaries right from the start. For instance, as she pulls up to a local casino on her way back to Vegas, she meets a guy who is every woman’s fantasy. You know the type. And this passionate hook-up resonates throughout the novel like a bad dream.
We describe a place where loyalty is currency and survival depends on knowing when to hold, when to fold and when to strike.
A Novel
Succession in Las Vegas! From bestselling writing duo Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman, a sexy and suspense-packed thriller about the prodigal daughter of a Las Vegas casino empire who returns to take over her family business, only to discover that she’s up against the Mob, the Feds, and her own brothers.
When Josie King left Las Vegas in the 90s, she never looked back. The daughter of gambling mogul Roy King, spirited math whiz Josie grew up on the casino floor but deliberately turned away from the family business. She’s been living a quiet life in LA as an accountant and a single mom when she finds herself summoned back to Sin City. Now, fifteen years later, her father has died unexpectedly, and Josie’s siblings are already gathered for the reading of his will...only to discover that in order to inherit they must spend three years working together at the notorious family casino, The Jackpot.
Josie’s pride won’t let her walk away from the family empire again, so she agrees to take charge of the casino’s finances. She quickly discovers that while Roy King was once the most powerful man in Vegas, times have changed. These days, everyone has a piece of the action: Josie’s brothers, the FBI, the local mobsters, even the sexy rival casino owner who’s more than a friend. Las Vegas is more dangerous than ever, but Josie knows that to save the family business she’ll have to wade in deeper…
Stacked with sex, crime, sibling rivalry, and mountains of cash, The Kings of Vegas is an electrifying thriller with a tough and irresistible heroine at the center of the action.
Women's Fiction | Fiction Adventure [ William Morrow, On Sale: June 30, 2026, Hardcover / e-Book / audiobook, ISBN: 9780063435612 / eISBN: 9780063435629 ]
Karen Mack a former attorney, is a Golden Globe award winning film and television producer. She is a cum laude graduate of UCLA with a BA in Political Science and a Juris Doctorate from the UCLA School of Law.
Jennifer Kaufman (left) is a former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times and a two time winner of the national Penney-Missouri Journalism Award. She is a graduate of Barnard College and the Columbia University School of Journalism.
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