The Princess of Las Vegas: A Novel
Description
One of Elle's Best and Most Anticipated Mysteries of 2024 - THE PRINCESS IS FAKE. THE MURDERS ARE REAL - From the New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant and The Lioness, a Princess Diana impersonator and her estranged sister find themselves drawn into a dangerous game of money and murder in this twisting tale of organized crime, cryptocurrency, and family secrets on the Las Vegas strip. Crissy Dowling has created a world that suits her perfectly. She passes her days by the pool in a private cabana, she splurges on ice cream but never gains an ounce, and each evening she transforms into a Princess, performing her musical cabaret inspired by the life of the late Diana Spencer. Some might find her strange or even delusional, an American speaking with a British accent, hair feathered into a style thirty years old, living and working in a casino that has become a dated trash heap. On top of that, Crissy's daily diet of Adderall and Valium leaves her more than a little tipsy, her Senator boyfriend has gone back to his wife, and her entire career rests on resembling a dead woman. And yet, fans see her for the gifted chameleon she is, showering her with gifts, letters, and standing ovations night after night. But when Crissy's sister, Betsy, arrives in town with a new boyfriend and a teenage daughter, and when Richie Morley, the owner of the Buckingham Palace Casino, is savagely murdered, Crissy's carefully constructed kingdom comes crashing down all around her. A riveting tale of identity, obsession, fintech, and high-tech mobsters, The Princess of Las Vegas is an addictive, wildly original thriller from one of our most extraordinary storytellers.
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Community Reviews
“What is it like to stand alone in the spotlight, a princess, the people before you in the dark hanging on your every word? What is it like to be the focus of memory, to know your audience is lingering in a world you have conjured?”
“I’m going to tell you what happened in Las Vegas…but my best is hampered by the fact that this all occurred when I was doing two shows a night, channeling a dead princess, sleeping until lunchtime, popping a bit too much Adderall and Valium (yes, both), and periodically–like that princess–purging over a jet black toilet.”
“This story is, at its core, a tale of two sisters…Do I make this sound like a fairy tale? It’s not. I was never a real princess…I could have grown into Christina, my given name. Or I could have been Chris. But, instead, I became Diana.”
“Diana Spencer was an eidolon in both senses of the word: she was idealized and she was spectral…she was always going to be tabloid fodder because she was winsome and lithe, even when the world around her was an incomprehensible thrum of sadness and despair…There’s nothing about Princess Diana’s story that doesn’t reek of melancholy, which might be why it is perfect for Las Vegas–a place which, I can tell you firsthand, is secretly the most melancholic place on earth.”
But when crypto conglomerate Futurium comes to town, the deaths start adding up. Three in the U.S.: two brothers/owners of the Buckingham Palace, one suicide/accident/murder, and the Princess of Las Vegas seems the most likely culprit–or at least that’s the way she’s being framed. They have her sister, they have her niece.
“It dawned on her–not with the measured, leisurely light of daybreak, but the coruscating, blinding midday sun of Las Vegas–that no matter what she was about to say, whatever words came from her mouth, she was going to screw either her sister or her daughter. There was no answer that could save them both.”
Las Vegas. FBI agents and assets. Cryptocurrency. Two sisters and a niece. “Familial treason of the highest order.” Chris Bohjalian’s The Princess of Las Vegas is a “slot machine dacha” with a triple five star rating!
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Chrissy has made a life for herself based on more than a passing resemblance to Diana. She spends her days hanging out in her pool side cabana, gin-soaked and valium-hazed. At night she's cloaked in the glamour and tragedy of a dead princess, showered by the applause of adoring Vegas review fans. Not a perfect life, but it's comfortable. Until her sister Betsy, nearly a dead ringer to and also estranged from Chrissy, suddenly turns up in town with a shiny new career in cryptocurrency and a shiny new family. People start dropping like flies and there's a grab for a seemingly second-rate off-the-strip casino by crypto-invested mobsters. Both sisters find themselves at the center of it all. Chrissy's comfortable Vegas life is now unravelling. Fast.
This is a weird combo of homage to Diana, nod to amateur sleuthing, study of the sadness of Vegas life, and a bit of a history lesson on the Vegas Strip.
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