THE VAPORS A Southern Family, the New York Mob, and the Rise and Fall of Hot Springs, America's Forgotten Capital of Vice

With comfortable Southern charm, narrator George Newbern, a Little Rock native, delivers this decades-spanning account of Hot Springs, Arkansas, when it was the uncontested gambling and sin capital of North America. From the 1870s through the 1960s, bookies, mobsters, hookers, and card sharks flocked to the home of the "healing waters" to chase their fortunes. The audiobook concentrates on locals like Dane Harris, a bootlegger's son who worked his way up to "boss gambler" and built The Vapors, the most elaborate and successful gambling joint on the strip. Newbern reflects the author's easy humor when mentioning the likes of Babe Ruth, mobster Frank Costello, the Andrews Sisters, and even a young Bill Clinton as occasional visitors and performers. A wonderful slice of Americana. B.P. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2020]