Book recommendation: The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian's newest novel, The Princess of Las Vegas, is a helluva barn-burner of a novel. The premise is fairly simple: a Vermont girl, Crissy Dowling, with a measure of talent and a need to run from her own past happens to look a lot like Princess Di, and she has developed a performance (not a tribute!) that mixes events from Di's life with some old chestnut songs. She has a residency at a B-list casino just off the strip, and she is pretty darn successful, at least professionally. Her personal life is a bit of a wreck, but she manages that as best she can. She has some dependency issues, but they are mostly just part of her daily routine. So is ignoring her sister back in Vermont.

Her sister, Becky Dowling, has her own set of problems, some stemming from their difficult childhood, and others the product of professional burnout as a social worker who works with troubled kids and families. She has entered into a relationship with the separated-but-not-yet-divorced father of one of her last clients, and he suggests that she move to Las Vegas; he is going there, because he is part of a company that deals in cryptocurrency. Becky has just adopted a 13 year old girl who was also one of her last cases, and the move seems ideal-- a change of scenery, a change of careers, and a new start for all of them.

This is where things go wildly off the rails. Vegas, often called Sin City, is all that and more. Include some very dangerous mob-style characters, a senator, and a whole lot of money and guns, and clearly, the two women have landed separately but inadvertently in some very troubled waters. 

I'm not going to say a whole lot more, because you really need to read the book. I will, however, state that the teenager helps save them, and yay, for that. I rarely (okay never) look at the last page of a book to see how it's all going to turn out. I got to the last fifty or so pages, and found myself skim-reading parts (sorry, Mr. Bohjalian), because I *had to know* what was coming. I did peek at the last page, but I only scanned to see if the principal characters were still alive by the end of the book. 

The whole thing may seem crazy, but it's not. Crypto is shady, even for those who understand the math and so on. Part of the GOP Project 2025 is a plan to allow cryptocurrency to go forth unfettered; "money" can and will be made, hand over fist, and they don't want any government regulation of it. Senators can be bought (like we didn't know that). And teenaged girls who are resourceful and who have access to a good education, who have been given the chance to learn and explore what they are good at, can do things that no one suspects they even know how to do. The two sisters from Vermont landing in Vegas is not all that far-fetched; I went to high school with a very smart guy whom everyone thought was going to go to an Ivy League college, and he ended up in Vegas, at least for a few years, dealing blackjack. He made HUGE money out there, and then went to college-- cash. 

Bohjalian's gift is to lead us on a merry (or not so merry) journey that imperils his characters; not all of them live, few can be trusted, and that's always because people have things they carry with them that aren't all that lovely in the light of day. His characters are real, at least in the framework of the story, and the situations are both stressful and very likely, if the conditions are present. I think that's what scares me (delightfully) when I'm reading his novels; the things in the story can and often do happen. There are a few other authors I can think of who do that well, too: Stephen King and John Grisham both come to mind. Jodi Picoult, for some of her work. What I really like is that Bohjalian teaches me things, too. He makes me think about things like cryptocurrency and Russian oligarchs, both elements of the news, but embodying these issues into characters and moving them around in a compelling narrative helps me understand just how dangerous they are. I appreciate that.

Pick up a copy, and let me know what you think!

Have a good one,

C