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VIVA LAS VENGEANCE is set in 1964 and features Elvis Presley in Las Vegas doing some investigating during a break between shooting Viva Las Vegas and Roustabout. Already dubbed the singing sleuth after his escapades in earlier books, he needs encouragement to get involved in another case. Elvis is staying in the Sahara and attends a show by Howie Pickles a comic who gets his laughs from skewering members of the audience with his barbed comments. The main butt of his 'jokes', a rather large lady, is found dead the next morning, her body in a crucified position on a wedding chapel billboard. The wedding chapel owner blames his competition. Then another of Pickles' victims is found dead on the opposing chapel's steeple. The chapels are at war, the Sahara blames another casino for killing the comic's audience and then rival brothels burn down. The whole town is at each other's throat. Elvis is dragged into investigating the deaths by Digby Ferguson, a drugged-up, former theology student and now would-be scriptwriter who discovered the first body. At the same time he falls heavily for Miss Shiva, a performer who lives out of town in a commune called The Center of the Light. She shows him a simple and rewarding existence and makes him question what he's doing with his own life. To try to calm the turf wars, Elvis agrees to perform at a peace concert to bring everyone together. Maybe then there'll be answers as to who killed the two tourists? VIVA LAS VENGEANCE features a more spiritual Elvis than in BLUE SUEDE CLUES with a focus more on the character of Elvis and his religious beliefs. He studies Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda and uses the calm he finds to think about his future and his gift. The Elvis in this series comes across as a humble, slightly innocent and respectful man and I've been intrigued enough to find out more about him. The mystery isn't particularly captivating, and disappears almost completely throughout the concert chapters. Perhaps the strongest selling point to this series is that of allowing the reader to spend time with Elvis in his prime, before the dark times that are foreshadowed overtake him. This series gets extra points for its punning titles: KILL ME TENDER, BLUE SUEDE CLUES and the not yet released in the UK, SUCH VICIOUS MINDS.
Reviewed by Karen Meek, May 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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