Detectives Laura Baxter and Jack Holt are members of the elite: Las Vegas Metro PD, one of the toughest and most respected law enforcement agencies in the United States. In the middle of a city with two million residents and 43 million annual visitors, they’re hunting for a killer. The girlWhen a beautiful, young girl is killed on the high-roller floor of the exclusive Scala Casino, the news … reverberates for hours among the ritzy clientele. Before taking the stage where she found her death, Crystal was last seen boarding an unmarked helicopter for a late-night flight to an unknown destination.The moneyThe stakes are high at the roulette table, and the players are hot-blooded. Among them, a stone cold killer watches, waits, and kills without leaving a single trace of evidence. Rien ne va plus but death.The gameThe name of the game is murder, and it doesn’t stop with Crystal’s death. Anyone who threatens to expose the killer’s identity will soon find they’re being targeted. In Las Vegas, secrets can kill.Two mavericks make an intriguing team. Baxter and Holt trust each other with their lives, only not with their darkest secrets.
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Good female-driven procedurals are hard to find. Leslie Wolfe never disappoints! .
This is my first book by Leslie wolfe and it was a great thriller mystery. Lots of great characters i love both baxter and holt,both are very interesting and complexed and their chemistry is great. One of my fave characters is anne st. Clair,I loved her personality ,so fisty and tough!! This book had me guessing til the end so many suspects and they all had a reason to kill Crystal a young exotic dancer who made the mistake in trusting some very powerful people. Crystal made the mistake also of falling in love with a married man and becoming pregnant with his baby. Somebody poisoned her ,but who was it . So many twists to this story and in the end will their be justice for this young beautiful girl,yes! as long as baxter, holt and Dr Anne st. clair have a say in it their will be, because they won’t stop looking for clues and evidence til the killer or killers is found.Leslie Wolfe is a great storyteller and her words flow easily from page to page!! Can’t wait to read some more of her work.
I could not stop reading. Another great book from this author!
Holt/Baxter are detectives that seem to ‘stay’ in trouble with the authorities over them; however, they squeak by and continue to solve cases. This was a good mystery to solve with multiple suspects. Great characters and great writing to keep me entertained until late in the night (when I should be sleeping). Reading the next in the series.
I absolutely loved this book and all of Lesley Wolfe novels and am looking forward to reading Taker of Lives,fantastic author,have recommended her to family and friends.
Love the interaction between Baxter and Holt. The plot keeps me guessing.
I found this Casino Girl to be another gripping thriller which is what I have come to expect from Leslie Wolfe. She has never disappointed me and I usually preorder her books.
Although this is the 2nd book in the Baxter and Holt series I do not feel someone who has not read the 1st would find themselves very much in the dark. The main case in each book is solved by the end. There is a slight thread regarding their lives that runs through each book allowing us to gradually become better acquainted with them, an aspect I like as I feel it allows us to see the character develop.
If this seems to be your taste I encourage you to read both books in the series.
This is my first book by this author and it’s been an exciting adventure. This story is a massive whirlwind of twist and turns and more suspects than snakes on medusa’s head. These two detectives have more than this case going on as previous cases and actions are now dogging their present and being held as weapons to yield when convenient. With tons of backlash and push back these two are getting the job done and ruffling feathers as they go.
Loved the action and suspense. The characters and their barely contained chemistry is a great background. Loved the book.
Laura has secrets, but not for the reasons you may think. It was too difficult to talk about. How long before she will need to share it with Holt, her partner? But…first, let’s deal with the dead body.
It was, literally, Crystal’s last performance on stage.
We have two mysteries going on and they will both be solved.
We also have two damaged characters that hesitate to share their baggage, but we all know they will, sooner or later. I love Holt, after I find out how far he will go to protect his partner. I wonder, will they hook up. I think they would be perfect together.
Laura’s husband had been killed interrupting a drug deal. The case was never closed, but she had stopped looking…until she found HIM. She crossed the line, but I couldn’t blame her. How far did she go? Shhhhh….I’m not telling.
Someone knows something and Laura is being blackmailed. She feels all she has is her job, and must find a way out of the mess she finds herself in. No one to turn to, she must solve the problem on her own.
So many suspects and Leslie Wolfe does not give it up easily. The mystery and suspense keep on giving and I eliminate the suspects one by one, until there is no doubt.
I love Laura. She is a deep character and I love it when a character is more than they appear to be. She has a strong sense of right and wrong, but justice needs a little help sometimes, don’t you think?
“Tell me in detail, how exactly you are planning to make me scream?”
I’ll let you figure that out for yourself, but it left a smile on my face.
Casino Girl is more that I thought it would be, two mysteries for the price of one. I love that it is a stand alone novel, though there is a lot more to the series and, after reading Casino Girl, I would love to know all the wonderful details of the other adventures. After all, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, so we must visit to get the details. And the characters, I love when they surprise me and Leslie Wolfe threw in some good ones. Vigilante justice raises questions and tweaks my thought process, but hey, sometimes justice does need a little help. I think it’s great when a novel makes me debate life, and wonder, what if…
I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Casino Girl by Leslie Wolfe.
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read the whole series!!!
When a Vegas girl is killed, Detectives Laura Baxter and Jack Holt get the case. She was an exotic dancer in the high rollers room in a Vegas casino. But that is where everything starts. The more they investigate, the more things come to light that some people would rather not have come to light. There are stories within this story that will keep you wondering just where is this headed? Exceptional story line! Great characters! I loved this story and can’t wait for the next one!
CASINO GIRL by Leslie Wolfe
Crystal see’s herself belonging to the world of glitter amd gold as an exotic dancer. Life would change with the growing baby bump for her. She grabbed the pole, defeated, and became limp, and was gone. Farley’s worst nightmare had begun. A killer was among them. Laura had a partner Jack and he was open about his secrets but she wasn’t. This caused friction between them but their lives depended on them trusting one another especially now with this case. With the death of Crystal why did they wait four hours to call 911. Plot was intense, your heart goes out for Crystal who was eighteen and a third year college student. A married boyfriend, but he loved her. This is a must read. It captures you and has a surprising ending where Jack finally gets Laura to open up. Given ARC for my voluntary review and my honest opinion. EllenOceanside
Another great mystery by Leslie Wolfe. An Exotic dancer, Crystal, if found dead on the dancing stage. There is infidelity, murder, a blown up morgue to cover up the murder. This is a fast paced investigation by Detectives Baxter and Holt who head up the investigation. A surprise ending. This novel will keep you on the edge of your seat.
A really good story. Holt and Baxter have to peal away layer after layer of clues to find the killer. It’s nicely paced, with sev twists to keep you interested. I always enjoy reading this authors books. Very entertaining.
I liked the characters. Det. Laura Baxter is a highly trained cop. She also had vigilante tendencies. Her partner, Jack Holt is a recovering addict. They investigate the murder of a Vegas exotic dancer. I like the mystery. There are several suspects. Some of them very wealthy and powerful. There are twists and surprises.
There are two scenes I found a little hard to accept. Despite that, I highly recommend this book. If you like police procedure mysteries you will like this.
Casino Girl by Leslie Wolfe is the second in a series of stories featuring a female British detective who somehow winds up in Las Vegas and has recently been reassigned to the homicide unit with a new partner just a week ago. Apparently the events of the first book happened during that first week. The author drops dozens of references to those events (including our hero having sex with her new partner) although it’s never really clear why those events matter to this story other than as part of detective Baxter’s tortured psyche. The current story, told partly in the first person voice of the hero, centers around the sudden and unexplained death of an exotic dancer/waitress in the high-roller area of an fictional high-end casino. The cops think it’s some kind of poison, but there is no apparent motive for anyone and even halfway through the book there is only speculation about who might be a suspect.
The main character here is emotional, cries a lot, has sexual fantasies about her partner, and is apparently able to hide a phone, a lock pick set, and a gun inside her bra while wearing a sexy evening dress. She has a ton of emotional baggage, is both trying to shield her partner from examination by internal affairs and also trying to decide whether she believes him about not being involved in the theft of a kilo of cocaine. She becomes instantly emotionally attached to the victim and her younger sister, who is potentially a victim of abuse by their mother’s boyfriend whose subplot doesn’t seem to add anything to the overall story. Her inner thoughts are hard to follow and ultimately she is not an easy character to get behind.
The overall plot is convoluted and complex, but what makes this novel difficult to read is the lack of attention to detail. Early on, whoever is behind the murder sends in a professional arsonist to burn down the morgue, thereby destroying any forensic evidence that might be under investigation and might lead back to the killer. The Coroner, a close friend of our hero, is in the room and fights the bad guy, only to be left behind when he runs and throws a grenade into the gasoline-soaked space. The coroner crawls into a body-storage slot, the building burns down around her — and she walks away with barely a scratch and is back to work in new space the next day. Really? The heat, smoke, and lack of oxygen in the center of a raging fire didn’t kill her why?
There is also in this book perhaps the worst courtroom scene ever written. Everything about the legal procedure is wrong, including the judge ordering the prosecution to interrupt its case so that the defense attorney can call our hero as a rebuttal witness in the morning after her lover/partner testifies the prior afternoon. It’s not that hard to find a lawyer who can give some technical advice, but this was just awful. Then, our hero decides to go breaking-and-entering at the home of the suspect, the night before her testimony, aided by a tech wizard back at the department who is able (somehow) to hack into the perp’s home security system remotely and both monitor her movements and disable the security system. It’s helpful to the plot, but just impossible.
The author doesn’t even really seem to have a grasp on how casinos work in Las Vegas.
In short, it’s very disappointing. The guts of a good story are here, but the execution is lacking.