Prince of Sin City

by Gary Walton

“In Prince of Sin City, Gary Walton does for Newport, Kentucky what Elroy and Connelly do for Los Angeles.  Never heard of Newport?  Well now, when Walton's Dennis Prince isn't being sidetracked by murder, kidnapping, syndicates and politicos, let him take you on a tour of the town, a place where "What'll ya have" means more than "with water or on the rocks."  Gary Walton creates a cinematic excursion into lives you won't soon forget and places you can' t believe are real. They are and Walton's got the pictures to prove it.  So, pour yourself a beer, grab the pretzels and settle down for some druggin and thugin and one hell of an exciting read.”

                   Julianna McCarthy, actor and author

“Much thanks for...Prince of Sin City, whose dialogue looks irresistible. I’m all for novels that aspire to give a reader a good time....”           

                   X. J. Kennedy, bestselling author

“What fun!...I know you had a ball writing it....I think your characterizations are great and the dialogue is just right.”

                   John F. Zeigler,

                   Senior Editor of the University Press of Kentucky

paper, $24.99

Gary Walton

Gary Walton is the author of five books of poetry: Full Moon: the Melissa Moon Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2007), The Millennium Reel  (Finishing Line Press, 2003), Effervescent Softsell (Red Dancefloor Press, 1997), Cobwebs and Chimeras (Red Dancefloor Press, 1995), The Sweetest Song (Peapod Press, 1988),  and one book of short fiction and humor: The Newk Phillips Papers (Red Dancefloor Press, 1995). His latest book is a comic novel about Newport, Kentucky in its heyday as a gambling Mecca called Prince of Sin City (which is based in part on a conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination.) His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize twice and the Kentucky Literary Award for Full Moon: the Melissa Moon Poems in 2008. Walton is an assistant professor in the department of English at Northern Kentucky University. His areas of interest include Modernism, Postmoderism, and the Irish Literary Renaissance. Walton received a Ph.D. from the George Washington University. (His thesis was a poststructuralist comparison of James Joyce’s Ulysses and the work of Donald Barthelme). He is currently Editor of the Journal of Kentucky Studies.

Prince of Sin City, is a mystery/love story, featuring Dennis Prince—a hapless reporter in Newport, Kentucky, an infamous border town just across the river from Cincinnati, Ohio. For more than half a century, Newport was known as “Sin City” for its reputation as a Mobbed-up Mecca for illegal gambling and other nefarious pursuits and Prince finds himself embroiled in kidnapping, civic corruption and a story of political intrigue so dark that it reaches from the small river town of Newport to the highest levels of American power and prestige. While trying to help his friend, Big Dick Hubris (the Big Time Wrestler), Prince stumbles into the center of a violent web of secrets which he must either expose or die trying. As time is running out, he finds he must rescue an old buddy from the clutches of the Mob and, if luck is with him, he just might find time to fall in love.  Meanwhile, everyone from the Mafia to the CIA will do anything to stop him, including murder.