This is a 2016 publication, I am just now getting to the review. I am someone from a generation that was raised by a father that boxing was a way of life for him when he was growing up in the ’30s and then fighting in WWII and Korea. It was baseball, boxing, football and how to play cards. I digress. This book about the murder of Sonny Liston, or what the author and most people felt was a murder is still a cold case. As much as, the author put forth a fantastic effort it just led to one dead end after another (no pun intended). The author will take you through his history of boxing matches, his marriages, numerous children, his philandering, drug addiction, you get the point. The positive side is you see where he came from and the hope he once had and that really it was probably the people around him early on how to lead him astray just my opinion. Then with all of the fighting he did and the injuries he had that either he did not tell or people in his corner did not do anything about. Once one injury happened and did not heal correctly I can see where he began drugs and then it just went from there, again just my opinion. He was a great fighter at one time and as you go through the book and see the people mainly men who made fun of him when 10 or 15 years before would not is a shame. Overall a good story and it is a shame to not find the truth that many people thought at the time that he was murdered. The author did a very good job on this book.

I was very excited to read this book. And it did not disappoint. Growing up, male members of my family were huge boxing fans, as was I. I heard a lot about Sonny Liston and was always interested in his life as well as his death. This book was a very good beginning for me to learn about these things. The writing was good and flowed. To learn about Vegas, boxing and the mob was an added bonus. Any boxing fan should read this book. After reading this book, I think there are unanswered questions that should at least be looked into. Thanks to
NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review. Thank you for granting my wish!!

This reads like an old episode of mystery. It is a decent book but it never really gives enough evidence to make you think there is a mystery other than a mean man slowly killing himself in the seedy world of Las Vegas.

I had high expectations for this book, but unfortunately it failed to hold my attention.

Charles “Sonny” Liston lived a mysterious life, whether it was when he was born but could not produce a birth certificate, his young adulthood when he was imprisoned, when he was rising through the ranks of boxing to become the heavyweight champion, when he lost to Muhammad Ali twice (with the second fight ending by some accounts due to a phantom punch) and later in his post-boxing life in Las Vegas. When he was found dead in his apartment by his wife Geraldine on January 5, 1971 the medical examiner declared Liston’s death to be due to “natural causes.”

This book by investigative journalist Shawn Assael casts doubts on this diagnosis and raises the question of whether the former champion was forced to overdose on heroin that led to his death. In order to ask this question (Assael does not come to a definite conclusion that Liston was murdered), he writes a significant backstory about Las Vegas and the culture of the town at that time – mainly the drug, entertainment and criminal elements. Even if the reader doesn’t care at all about Liston, boxing or sports, he or she will be fascinated with the detailed description of “Sin City” in that time period.

If one wants to read this to find out just who would want a former heavyweight champion dead, there is plenty of candidates for that as well. The theories floated about in the book include thoughts that Liston knew too much about a) the drug dealers in Las Vegas, b) crooked police officers, or c) fixed fights, including his own in the second loss to Ali. The list of suspects the author offers up is extensive as well, as he names these possibilities: An ex-girlfriend, a gaming player in Las Vegas named Ash Resnick, a rogue cop from the Las Vegas Police department, an informant and accomplice of said cop and even someone from the Nation of Islam. There is even a “secret percent theory” told in which Liston would receive a portion of the receipts from all of Ali’s future bouts. While the evidence that Assael has on each one makes for great reading, not one of these theories convince readers or even the author himself that they are definitive proof that Liston was murdered.

So while this may generate as many questions as it answers, this book is one of the more entertaining books about the time and the sport of boxing that I have read. There is a decent amount of text about Liston’s fights as well. The quality of that writing shows that Assael not only can write about 1960’s Las Vegas and the culture, but can also cover the action inside a boxing ring quite well. This book is recommended for readers who want to learn more about Liston or Las Vegas in that era.

I wish to thank Blue Rider Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.