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corrie 's review for:
Flesh and Gold
by Ann Aptaker
Havana, 1952, a city throbbing with pleasure and danger, where the Mob peddles glamor to the tourists and there's plenty of sex for sale. In the swanky hotels and casinos, and the steamy, secretive Red Light district of the Colón, Cantor Gold, dapper art thief and smuggler, searches the streets and brothels for her kidnapped love, Sophie de la Luna y Sol. Cantor races against time while trying to out run the deadly schemes of American mobsters and the gunsights of murderous local gangs.
Oh man alive! This has to be the most hair raising (and heartbreaking) adventure for Cantor Gold yet.
In her relentless pursuit to find Sophie, Cantor finally gets a lead to where her lost love might have been taken after she was kidnapped from the streets. Havanna is the backdrop for this 4th book in the series and it’s the darkest one yet. Like always, Gold finds herself in hot water when just about every party on the island wants to silence this meddling Americano for good. If only our dapper dyke art smuggler would know who to trust.
”The melody and rhythm of a lovely Cuban danzón flows softly from inside the house when Agnes opens the door. She’s all decked out in a gold lamé gown that reminds me of a getup I saw in an Ava Gardner picture, except Ava Gardner is svelte and beautiful and Agnes is puffy. But there’s beauty in Agnes tonight. Maybe it’s the classy Cuban music behind her with its strains of elegant romance, or maybe it’s her no-nonsense gutter wisdom at ease with her hard-won luxuries, like the expensive lamé gown and the gold and ruby rings on her fingers. Here at the door of her stylish temple of pleasure for profit, built by perseverance and brains in a hard game, the up-from-the-Havana-gutter New England spinster Agnes Cain is beautiful.
This part made me love Ann Aptaker even more because in this beautiful little segment she references to my favorite Hollywood actress (and most beautiful woman of the silver screen) Ava Gardner in her gold lamé dress. The dress she wore at the premiere of The Barefoot Comtessa in 1954. Just do yourself a favor and Google ‘Ava Gardner premiere Barefoot Comtessa’ and try not to drool all over your keyboard.
Aptaker makes my heart sing. This Crime Noir series is just pure perfection. It violent and dark but there is such poetry in the way she paints a scene. Her women are both vulnerable and calculating, sultry, sexy and always magnets for trouble. I always hope against hope that none of them will have died by the end of the book, but alas… Ann Aptaker is just as bad as George R. R. Martin in that regard. She does not discriminate and therefore her women die just as easily as the goons.
Don’t look for romance. Cantor Gold beds other women but has only one love, Sophie de la Luna y Sol, and she will go to hell and back to find her. And jeez, does Ann Aptaker kick us in the gut with this ending! We will have to wait for the next installment to see if Cantor has the will left to search on . You evil, evil woman.
f/f graphic violence and death
Themes: 1950ies Havanna, thugs-a-plenty, who can you trust, gang wars, Chivas neat, will we finally meet Sophie?
5 stars
* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books Inc. for an honest review.
Oh man alive! This has to be the most hair raising (and heartbreaking) adventure for Cantor Gold yet.
In her relentless pursuit to find Sophie, Cantor finally gets a lead to where her lost love might have been taken after she was kidnapped from the streets. Havanna is the backdrop for this 4th book in the series and it’s the darkest one yet. Like always, Gold finds herself in hot water when just about every party on the island wants to silence this meddling Americano for good. If only our dapper dyke art smuggler would know who to trust.
”The melody and rhythm of a lovely Cuban danzón flows softly from inside the house when Agnes opens the door. She’s all decked out in a gold lamé gown that reminds me of a getup I saw in an Ava Gardner picture, except Ava Gardner is svelte and beautiful and Agnes is puffy. But there’s beauty in Agnes tonight. Maybe it’s the classy Cuban music behind her with its strains of elegant romance, or maybe it’s her no-nonsense gutter wisdom at ease with her hard-won luxuries, like the expensive lamé gown and the gold and ruby rings on her fingers. Here at the door of her stylish temple of pleasure for profit, built by perseverance and brains in a hard game, the up-from-the-Havana-gutter New England spinster Agnes Cain is beautiful.
This part made me love Ann Aptaker even more because in this beautiful little segment she references to my favorite Hollywood actress (and most beautiful woman of the silver screen) Ava Gardner in her gold lamé dress. The dress she wore at the premiere of The Barefoot Comtessa in 1954. Just do yourself a favor and Google ‘Ava Gardner premiere Barefoot Comtessa’ and try not to drool all over your keyboard.
Aptaker makes my heart sing. This Crime Noir series is just pure perfection. It violent and dark but there is such poetry in the way she paints a scene. Her women are both vulnerable and calculating, sultry, sexy and always magnets for trouble. I always hope against hope that none of them will have died by the end of the book, but alas… Ann Aptaker is just as bad as George R. R. Martin in that regard. She does not discriminate and therefore her women die just as easily as the goons.
Don’t look for romance. Cantor Gold beds other women but has only one love, Sophie de la Luna y Sol, and she will go to hell and back to find her. And jeez, does Ann Aptaker
f/f graphic violence and death
Themes: 1950ies Havanna, thugs-a-plenty, who can you trust, gang wars, Chivas neat, will we finally meet Sophie?
5 stars
* A free copy was provided by Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books Inc. for an honest review.