The Lucky O'Toole Novels
vegas-set stories (2 so far) that are sexy, wry, romantic, and slightly naughty mixed with a little murder and mayhem...
WANNA GET LUCKY? (The first Lucky O’Toole Vegas adventure)
WHEN A YOUNG WOMAN plunges from a Las Vegas hotel’s helicopter into the pirate’s lagoon in front of the Treasure Island Hotel during the 8:30 Pirate Show, Lucky O’Toole realizes it’s going to be another one of those weeks. As if the Adult Film Industry’s awards banquet, the Lifestylers’ annual spouse-swapping convention, and other myriad problems thirty-five hundred hotel guests can create weren’t enough. Now Lucky, the wise-cracking Head of Customer Relations for the Babylon, has a suspicious death to further complicate her life.
The police are a bit disinterested, and Lucky finds herself babysitting a newly minted detective. She soon realizes she is in over her head. When she asks her boss, Albert Rothstein (the Big Boss), a Vegas legend, for help, he not only stonewalls her, but he intimates that the new hire in Security, Paxton Dane—a long, tall drink of Texas charm—is not what he appears to be, and the Big Boss asks Lucky’s help to determine what game the Texan is playing. Lucky already has more than enough problems with Dane. Whenever she is in his presence, her libido threatens to override good sense and rational thought. With her plate full to overflowing, Lucky finds herself incapable of dealing with her mother, Mona, the owner and madam of the best brothel in Nevada. Cryptic warnings in Mona’s usual criticisms foreshadow a secret that will alter the axis of Lucky’s world.
When she needs her the most, Lucky’s assistant, Miss Patterson turns into a cougar, mooning after the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, Las Vegas’ ace private investigator, and a man fifteen years her junior. An old flame, Irv Gittings, offers Lucky obscene amounts of money to come work for him and Lucky knows this means only one thing—Gittings is up to no good. She must face past mistakes to discover what high-stakes game Gittings is playing this time.
On top of everything else, her best friend, The Great Teddie Divine, Las Vegas’ premier female impersonator, wants their relationship to be more than friendship. Leave it to Lucky to attract a guy who looks better in her clothes than she does. Dealing with this rapid-fire onslaught of events, Lucky struggles to keep her libido and her life from spinning out of control.
MORE about WANNA GET LUCKY? (author insights into the story, and an excerpt)
Lucky Stiff (The Second Lucky O’Toole Vegas adventure)
AS HEAD OF CUSTOMERS RELATIONS for The Babylon Resort, the newest addition to the excesses of the Las Vegas Strip, Lucky O’Toole is used to handling problems, but tonight is outstripping even her formidable skills. A tractor-trailer filled with millions of honeybees jackknifes in front of the Babylon, spewing swarms of enraged insects. The very naked District Attorney, Daniel “Lovie” Lovato, apparently involved in a threesome on the twelfth floor, locks himself out of his room and takes refuge in the laundry closet. And Lucky spies her assistant’s live-in lover, The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, in a heated spat with pretty, poisonous Numbers Neidermeyer, one of the less-than-savory odds makers in town.
When someone tosses Ms. Neidermeyer into the shark tank at the Mandalay Bay Resort/Casino as a late night snack, and DA Lovato pushes for a quick indictment against the Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, Lucky is drawn into the murder investigation.
None of this would be so bad except that it’s fight weekend in Vegas. Tiny Tortilla Padilla, former middleweight Champion of the Universe, has been lured out of retirement for one last fight. He, his wife, and their sixteen children descend on the Babylon, along with various Hollywood luminaries, hookers from the far corners of the country, and hordes of really big gamblers.
To further complicate matters, Jordan Marsh, the current Hollywood hunk and one of Lucky’s longtime friends, shows up unexpectedly, imploring Lucky for help with a very personal matter. Lucky’s mother, Mona, the owner and Madam of the self-styled “Best Whorehouse in Pahrump”, has gotten the world’s attention by auctioning off a young woman’s virginity, and, naturally, she expects Lucky to save her from the fire. A handsome new French chef proves to be a handful while both he and Paxton Dane, the Gaming Control Board’s representative keep Lucky’s libido jumping.
Lucky is hanging by her fingernails when a compromising photograph of her lover, Teddie, and a young singer, runs in the morning paper—just after Teddie has announced he has been offered the job as the singer’s opening act on her upcoming world tour.
MORE about LUCKY STIFF (author insights into the story, and an excerpt)
