Houdini Publishing expands focus with crime, Las Vegas and entertainment offerings

Geno Munari of Houdini Publishing began writing books out of necessity and entered the publishing field out of frugality and straightforward business sense.

Among his many credits and talents, Munari is a magician. He opened a shop called Houdini’s Magic at the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park. One day he sold a trick to a teenager who tried to return it a few hours later. When he asked why, he was told that the boy had discovered he could buy the $10 trick for $7 in another part of the park.

“I asked the kid to show me where, and sure enough, someone had opened another magic shop and they were undercutting all of my prices,” Munari said. “They were just selling the tricks. They didn’t have a magician to show how to do them, but everything was about 40 percent less there.”

To add value to his products, Munari began writing books to go with each trick, showing 100 ways the trick could be used. He printed them at local copy shops.

“At the end of the year I looked at my printing bill, and it was about 15,000 bucks,” Munari said. “I said, ‘You know, I think it’s time to buy a printing press.’ So I got my first press and I looked like Lucy (Ball) Arnaz in the candy factory. Paper was everywhere. It was on my head. It was unbelievable.”

Munari started his printing business in his condo on Koval Lane. It has since expanded to a warehouse at 6455 Dean Martin Drive. He employs a slew of people, including a printer, shippers and a graphic designer. He runs his empire of seven magic shops, a mail order magic supply business, an auction house and the printing business from the same location.

Munari built a video production studio on the property to film instructional videos to go with the magic tricks.

While magic instruction books started the publishing arm of his company, it was his longtime connections with Las Vegas that expanded printing to include both fiction and nonfiction books on crime, Las Vegas, entertainment and more.

The company’s current crop of writers includes insiders on both sides of the law and The Wednesday Warriors, a writers group composed primarily of retired military and police officers who meet weekly to discuss and critique each oothers’ work. Group members recently collaborated to create a collection of short stories for Houdini Publishing about valor, heroism and patriotism titled “I Pledge Allegiance.”

The stable of writers who have found a home at Houdini Publishing includes Sunrise-area author Dennis Griffin. His latest works include “House Party Tonight: The Career of Legendary Saxophonist Don Hill,” about fellow Sunrise-area resident Hill, who performed with the Treniers for more than 50 years and still plays regularly in Las Vegas.

Griffin’s most recent book is “Rogue Town,” co-written with former undercover policeman Vito Colucci Jr. The book is about organized crime and corruption in Stamford, Conn., in the 1960s and ’70s.

“I was surprised when I heard about it,” Griffin said. “I was used to these things in New York and Chicago, but once I got into it I realized how logical it was, because it was so close to New York City.”

The co-authors met when they appeared on several Internet radio shows together. Colucci asked Griffin to help him tell his story. The pair was aided by a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of articles on the subject by Anthony Dolan, who was at the time a reporter for the Stamford Advocate newspaper. Dolan, who penned the book’s foreword, became a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, responsible for the famous line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Griffin is wrapping up another true crime book, working with co-author Morgan St. James to write “La Bella Mafia.”

“It’s about 90 percent complete,” Griffin said. “It’s about a woman who grew up with an odd and terrible childhood, with physical and sexual abuse, and went on to form a group called La Bella Mafia that helps abused women.”

St. James, Griffin and the book’s subject, who goes by the name Bella Capo, attended an April 10 launch event for Houdini Publishing at the Italian American Social Club, 2333 E. Sahara Ave. It was their first face-to-face meeting.

“Bella is the daughter of an organized crime figure, and she’s been through so much it’s hard to believe,” St. James said. “When she unwittingly moved into Crips territory, she said she became the only white female leader of the Crips to protect her family.”

After presentations by many of the publishing house’s authors, Munari announced the company’s latest innovation.

“It’s called a Houdini Book Vendor,” he said. “It’s a portable machine that will vend a book in any location. It can vend a book in the printed form and in an electronic version.”

The machine is an adaptation of an earlier creation to vend magic tricks created by Munari that was shelved when other priorities became too pressing. The machine includes a video monitor that is set to screen short promotional videos featuring the books being sold.

Houdini publishing is seeking a location to install the first Houdini Book Vendor.

For more information, visit
www.houdinipublishing.com.

Contact Sunrise/Whitney View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.