My Week At the Blue Angel ─ And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas

A savage journey to the heart of Hunter S. Thompson’s Las Vegas, with the Good Doctor as tour guide.A Lord of the Rings-like adventure in the city’s underground flood channels. A seven-day stay at a seedy motel on East Fremont Street.

The stories in My Week at the Blue Angel aren’t about Steve Wynn, Cirque du Soleil, or how to play poker and they aren’t set in Caesars Palace, XS Nightclub, or a 2,000-seat showroom. They’re about prostitutes, ex-cons, and the homeless and they’re set under Caesars Palace and in trailer parks and weekly motels.

In this creative-nonfiction collection, Matthew O’Brienauthor of Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegasand veteran photographer Bill Hughes show a side of the city rarely seen. A side beyond the neon lights, themed facades, and motel-room doors. A side beyond the barbwire fences, No Trespassing” signs, and midnight shadows.

A side of Las Vegas many locals and visitors are curious about, but few ever explore.

Matthew O’Brien is an author and journalist who’s lived in Las Vegas since 1997. His first book,Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas, chronicles his adventures in the city’s underground flood channels, which he explored for more than four years with a flashlight, tape recorder, and expandable baton for protection.My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas is his second book.

Bill Hughes is an award-winning photojournalist who moved from Dallas to Las Vegas in 1992 and worked for the alternative weekly newspaperCityLife until 2009. His work has also appeared in publications including theL.A. Times and newspapers in the Village Voice media chain.