"Jake and Michel are two rogues with respective hearts of gold. Their desire for booze and betting entitles them to front-row stools at the Unicorn, the local tavern in their Belgian village. But one morning they are overcome by more urgent desires, needs that can't be fulfilled in the Unicorn. And so they head for the promised land of silk and money: Las Vegas."--BOOK JACKET. "It doesn't take long before that animal called desire rears its ugly head on both sides of the Atlantic, resulting in horrible acts - both damning, and sending shock waves across two worlds. Two forms of desire go afoul of each other, revealing the dark menace lurking behind the facade of glitter and glamour in the New World, of friendship and innocence in the Old World."--BOOK JACKET. "Commenting on the turmoil at the Unicorn and on Jake and Michel's hell-raising in the gambling casinos and nightclubs is the ghost of larger-than-life Rickabone: card shark, layabout, wayfarer, ne'er-do-well, barroom sage."--BOOK JACKET.