Casino: The Rise and Fall of the Mob in Las Vegas

Half way through the book, and it has been as good of a read as I expected. Being a big fan of Casino, the motion picture, and knowing that Pileggi co-wrote the movie script with Scorsese, I anticipated the book to be as good as the movie, and so far it has not disappointed. Las Vegas in the 70’s might not have been as flashy as it is today, but I would have loved to have been able to visit in those days.

As is often the case with the source material for great movies and TV shows Casino isn't quite as exciting as it's Scorsese directed adaptation but overall it was decently entertaining. Pileggi flows through anecdotes quite well and it must be said that he does build a good image in your mind of whats going on; he gets across the violence and unpredictability of Spilotro and the stoic intelligence of Rosenthal but the truth is the real story behind the movie wasn't THAT interesting and that's saying something considering we are talking about mobsters here. The style of allowing the story to be told through snippets of interview transcripts is good but also means that people repeat themselves in the telling of the anecdotes and by the end you're really ready for it to be over. It's not a terrible book, it's well put together and for the first 75% keeps you turning the pages but overall it left me unimpressed.

This is an absolutely fantastic story about the Casino world in Las Vegas and how it was seriously influenced by the mafia.It is written in a flowing way that will keep you riveted from first page to last.It reveals a fascinating story of how casinos were run and unravels all the twists and turns and intrigue over the period where it was controlled by organised crime syndicates.A truly brilliant book.

As a huge fan of Casino, I really wanted to find out more about the story and the characters behind the film.The story is fantastic, and as I've commonly found with Scorsese films, really faithful to the book, however, the plot jumps around, and the amount of characters really requires you to concentrate on who's who, and who did what.I don't want to do the book any injustice, as I said, it was really entertaining, but perhaps it's one to read before watching the film....

A terrific true story and a great price on Kindle.An absorbing and gripping true story of greed and corruption in the world of glitzy Vegas casinos and how The Mob cornered the market in cash waterfalls. This is the real world depicted by Scorcese's 'Casino'. A great read.

badly written, boring, boring, boring...