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Friday, April 26, 2013

Saint Joyce and I joined my younger sister Cheryl and brother Mitch in Las Vegas this past weekend for a reunion. My buddy Roger, I was on the USS Ranger with, made it too. We all stayed at the Stratosphere. We sipped a few by the pool, gambled a little, ate dinner at the Top of the World revolving restaurant, and saw the Pin-Up show. Our last night together we had a drink and dinner with my first cousin Darryl, who lives in Las Vegas. I hadn’t seen him in over 40 years. It was a great three day excursion.
On to the business side of the trip. Joyce had a mammography seminar at the Paris Casino on Saturday. I took the taxi with her at 7AM because everyone else slept in after the Top of the World dinner, and Pin-Up show the night before. Once I left Joyce off at the proper meeting room (not easy to locate) I walked down the Strip to the Mandalay Bay Casino where more than a few of my scenes take place in the sequel to HARDCASE I’m finishing. The sequel, THE LURE OF HELL, will be released on July 4th, but I should have it finished by the end of this month. It has an assassination scene, a UFC fight, a Baccarat card scene, and a confrontation in the workout room – all at the Mandalay. I finished all the research I needed there before walking back up the Strip to the other end where the Stratosphere is. I have a mugging scene between the Riviera Casino and the Stratosphere I wanted to take pictures of and do a final check. A few scenes also take place in the Stratosphere, but I had already checked them out the first day. I didn’t get back to the Stratosphere until after noon time, because navigating your way from the South end of the Strip to the North end on foot is not for the faint of heart – a very good workout. I met up with my brother, sister and Roger by the pool until Joyce joined us later. There are very few times when everything goes right on a trip like this. This one was as close as it gets.
Once in a while we fiction writers get to walk around in our characters’ shoes a little bit, and let the voices in our heads fill in the dialogue.  :)
High Stakes Baccarat Room at Mandalay Bay.
 Mandalay Bay Front

Mugging scene between Riviera Casino and Stratosphere. At night of course in the book.

6 comments:

raine said...

Sounds like a wonderful trip, Bernard--for both business & pleasure!

But what's a "Pin-Up Show"?

BernardL said...

It was a good one, Raine. The Pin-Up show had models dancing and singing to arrangements done by a spectacular band that accompanied them with a calendar theme. The trumpet player who arranged the musical score and directed was incredible - the best brass I've heard in a very long time.

Charles Gramlich said...

Definitely sounds enjoyable. Good to see folks you haven't seen in a while. Looking forward to that sequel. you know how much I enjoyed Hard Case.

BernardL said...

The mini reunion turned out very good, Charles. I had to get DEMON AT WAR up on Amazon today, but I'm nearly done with the sequel to HARD CASE. That will leave me plenty of time to write and edit. I hope your next Talera book is going well.

Timothy Feely said...

Sounds like a wonderful trip! I'm glad everything went so well. I'm looking forward to the sequel :)

BernardL said...

Thanks, Tim! THE LURE OF HELL will be breaking a few conventional morays in point of view, but it has action, humor, and an entertaining but somewhat horrifying plot. It introduces two new members into John Harding's crew - two cold as ice killers - Clint Dostiene and Lynn Montoya.