The Last Good Time

In the style of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, with the glamour of Ratpack Confidential and the intrigue and sleaze of the Sopranos, Jonathan van Meter has woven a stunning work of narrative non-fiction, set around one family amidst the alternately glamorous, seedy and forbidding Atlantic City. The Last Good Time tells the story of Skinny D'Amato and his daughter Paulajane. A close friend of Cubby Broccoli, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Dean Martin, and a de facto member of the rat pack, Skinny was the owner of the famous nightspot the 500 Club, and someone who made millions when legal gambling started in Atlantic City. He died in seclusion, smoking five packs of cigarettes a day, after his family became mired in scandal. The author moved to Atlantic City as a young man and became involved in the drama of the D'Amato family and the seedy underworld they inhabited. His portrait of the city moves from its shabby boardwalk to the glittering Trump casinos to the faded, upper-class Bay Club and the gay bars on New York Avenue, haunted by the spectre of the Mob.