The Ivory Coast A Novel

It is 1955 in Las Vegas, and the Chicago mob man Mo Weiner is bankrolling ex-boxer Worthless Worthington Lee and the city's first all-black hotel-casino. The Ivory Coast is rising up from the dust, on the wrong side of town. And out of the shadows steps Deacon, a white horn player with a dark past and a genius for jazz. Mo mistakes him for a hitman. Worthless takes him for a friend. Anita, the mixed-race beauty he falls for, wants him for herself. And Haney, the corrupt and racist cop who runs this hot desert oasis of sin and sand, wants him rubbed out.

Charles Fleming is a veteran entertainment industry reporter and the author of After Havana (Minotaur, January 2004), as well as The New York Times bestselling The Goomba's Guide to Life and High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess.

"What a great first novel! Charles Fleming has captured all the glitzy glamour of Las Vegas in the 1950s and brought it absolutely to life. The Ivory Coast is a terrific story from a talented storyteller." --Dominick Dunne

"Impressive...Amid all the hard-boiled James Ellroy-inspired drama what emerges here is a surprisingly sensitive story about the historic daringness and personal sacrifices that made integration possible. Yet Fleming never loses sight of the neon-lit sleaze of Las Vegas, making this sure-bet thriller as satisfyingly sordid as it is socially responsible." --Los Angeles Times

"Palpable...A kind of tenderness hovering behind the main players draws you in." --Houston Chronicle

"A promising fiction debut." --Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"This thoroughly engaging tale adroitly mixes an intriguing story with the history of the early days of the famed desert city." --The Poisoned Pen