Turning the Tables

by Rita Rudner

What Happens in Vegas . . .

Rita Rudner’s offbeat and on-target humor has won her rave reviews, passionate fans, and a record-setting, headlining show on the Vegas strip. Now she unleashes her hilarious take on Sin City in this comic romp filled with gambling, strippers, double-crossing exes, swingers’ conventions, magicians, and everything else that’s supposed to stay in Vegas.

Our heroine is Allie Bowen, a small-town girl who took a gamble on the big city that’s finally beginning to pay off. At twenty-six, she has a plum job at Heaven, a wonderland of vice that is Las Vegas’s hottest casino and the most profitable hotel in the world. Enshrouded in man-made clouds, Heaven is the kind of place where the security guards hide their glocks beneath white robes and wings.

As vice president of public relations, Allie glides easily from bribing nosy news teams with Cher tickets to comping disgruntled guests with visits to all-you-can-eat buffets. To top it all off, Allie is dating the handsome and ambitious Christian Sacco, a successful casino executive with his eye on the president’s office. Christian may not be perfect, but he’s much more of a go-getter than Allie’s ex-husband, an out-of-work, nice guy/terrible magician named Barry Houdini.

Little does Allie know that Christian has a ruthless streak, and he has concocted a plot to rip off the casino. When the couple breaks up over a tiny argument (Christian thinks a threesome with his ex-girlfriend would be great; Allie disagrees), she unknowingly becomes the perfect fall girl for Christian’s scheme. Allie is about to learn that working at Heaven can really be hell.

Only in Vegas, baby.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Humor

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Rita Rudner is an American comedienne, writer and actress.

Rudner and her producer husband, Martin Bergman, wrote the screenplay of the film Peter's Friends, in which she also acted. She is the author of the best-selling I Still Have It; I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It, Naked Beneath My Clothes, and the novels Tickled Pink and Turning The Tables. She has written several screenplays with her husband and a play called "Room 776" which premiered in Las Vegas in 2008.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tale of revenge is hard to categorize. It is not mysterious and it is not particularly funny, even though the author is a stand-up comedian. After reading this I still have no desire to go to Las Vegas.

[Elisabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A little entertaining but mostly ridiculous

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'd have given this 4 stars if the writing were more smooth. the first third of the book is a bit choppy in terms of dialogue and sentence structure. however, things really perk up before long, both in style and humor quotient. i like rudner's take on vegas. it's ridiculous, and certainly worth skewering, but it's full of real people with very real motivations for what they do. i really appreciated how she wove in those motivations, along with the asinine.

this is a quick, breezy read and it definitely made me laugh out loud a few times, which is hard to do (when i'm reading, anyway). full thumbs up.

[Doris Jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

A clever, funny, entertaining author. I smiled a lot and admired her wit. It was also peripherally informative about the machinations of the entertainment industry and life in Las Vegas.

[Tea · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read this book, but I remember laughing out loud more than once. Anybody who's spent any time in Vegas will recognize the wildness. Rita is hilarious on stage and on page

[Eden Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

From the JetBlackDragonfly book blog at www.edenthompson.ca/blog

Rita Rudner is a comedienne with a dry wit. Besides specials and Las Vegas residencies, she has written a few books - Naked Beneath My Clothes, and, I Still Have It, I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It.

The action takes place in Heaven, a grand casino resort, somehow masked 24 hours a day in a mountain of man-made fog like the clouds. Only when you approach the casino can you see the giant stained glass windows and enter through St. Peter's Gates. Why the Heaven theme? Why not? God had always liked the desert. He set the Bible there.
The casino bosses are wrangling to be chairman, and our heroine Allie loses her boyfriend, then her PR job, caught up in an in-house money laundering scheme. Meanwhile, her ex-husband Barry has been framed and sent to prison.

She bartends at a high-class strip club, Leopards, and starts her own celebrity call girl look-alike business. When the money is rolling in, she leaves them high and dry and the business folds. Nice! She works to get Barry out and exact revenge on the money launderers who threw her out of Heaven. Her long-term scheme is to create a hit magic act in Australia that Heaven would have to bring back to the US. And then there's the side trip to Thailand's sex clubs and the casino's funerals and birthing business...

It's all over the place; there wasn't enough humour, and the side plots had no weight. As a comedian, I expected her to inject a little goofiness, but the novel tries to be serious. The tough descriptions of prison seem out of place for a light read like this. Heaven was a fun casino idea, but even that concept is pushed - the main theatre was designed by NASA, where the audience is suspended over the stage for the performance.
This looked like the inside scoop of Vegas casinos, but was a hit and a miss. it seemed like the story changed with the chapters and I was left turning the pages.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rita Rudner was one of my favorite 80s comediennes discovered on an HBO special 'Women of the Night'. I thought she was very clever in her approach to humor, and adored her. I still adore her, even if she is working full-time in Vegas now. This book was fine, but pick up "Naked Beneath My Clothes" for a better read.

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a hard one to rate. I think it deserves more of a 2.5 star rating...it was a fun read, simple, light, and fast but it also didn't have a real deep plot, the characters at time one dimensional, and the dialogue silly in parts. Overall, however, it was still a book that kept me reading and for that I will give it 3 stars.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an autographed copy from Rita Rudner when we saw her in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, but only recently got around to reading it. Some parts were quite a riot! All in all, very "Vegas," and very Rita!

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It read like an Hour TV drama. The characters were likeable not real deep. The persons who are wronged get righted and you can feel that by the third chapter. Perfect for a plane ride or a long car ride.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rita is a comedian who can write. Kind of a rarity. This book was a pleasant diversion.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the story. Not quite as funny as Rita's "Tickled Pink". But she is surprisingly a fun writer! I am especially fond of the happy ending tales. Here it is!

[Kathleen (itpdx) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty silly and a bit raw. Probably would make a raw, fluffy mid-range movie.

[Big Daddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny light read
Recommend it as a weekend read or vacation read
Lots of lol chuckles

I will read more of her stuff