Flesh and Gold

Cantor Gold Crime #4

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.

Genres: Lesbian, Noir, Crime, Historical Fiction, Mystery

242 pages, Paperback

Published October 16, 2018

About the author

Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker has earned a reputation as a respected if cheeky exhibition designer and curator of art during her career in museums and galleries. Taking the approach that what art authorities find uncomfortable the public would likely enjoy, exhibitions Ann has curated have garnered favorable reviews in the New York Times, Art in America, American Art Review, and other publications.

She brings the same attitude and philosophy to her first love: writing, especially a tangy variety of historical crime fiction. Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions (2003 and 2004) of the noir crime anthology Fedora. Her flash fiction story, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet. In addition to curating and designing art exhibitions and writing crime stories, Ann is also an art writer and an adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology. (from the publisher's website)

Reviews

[Diane (IF U'RE PRIVATE, PLEASE SKIP ME!!!) Wallace]

3.5 stars!
An engrossing, heartfelt but sill gritty and constant page turning action in this book #4 of the ongoing historical sapphic gangster 'Cantor Gold Crime' series. Sophie....
Recommended book and series!

[Jem]

Book 4 of the Cantor Gold crime noir series is the darkest one yet. Also, for 99% of the book, the most thrilling page turner of the series. Because Cantor is finally making some serious headway in her journey to find a lost love. Until the end....isn't. Now I'm torn between wanting to throttle the author for extending my pain for another year(?!?!) or thanking her profusely because I have another Cantor Gold (mis)adventure to look forward to.

Normally, I'm not that patient with series books. I get bored easily after the first or second book and have abandoned more series than I have finished. But for some reason, well, mainly because there is an overall story arch in the books--a heartbreaking missing person search--that has me coming back for more, year after year, book after book. It's not the best of crime fiction. But it's engaging, smartly written and plotted, and is peppered with some pretty colorful characters. And of course, there is Cantor. She's dapper, dashing and recklessly daring. With a deep appreciation for the finer things in life---art, good whiskey and beautiful women. She's carved her own niche on the streets as an art trader, smuggler and thief. But what makes her unique? She's an unapologetic butch lesbian in late 1940s New York. Her favorite attire is a fine, tailored suit and gentleman's hat, her favorite accessory a Smith and Wesson .38. And she's open about her preferences regardless of society's opinions. Most of the series is about heists, deals, double-crosses and similar shenanigans, so it may not appeal to romance lovers. There is little of it because Cantor pines for a lost love. But it is ultimately why I keep coming back for more.

4 stars

(I was on my way to giving it 5 because, well it's my favorite Cantor Gold so far, but I'm dropping one for the ending. So near and yet so far. Ms. Aptaker, how could you?????😟😢😰 😭🤧😠😡 Note: I couldn't find a "screaming in frustration" emoji on my phone so the very understated red pout will have to do.😉 )

[Corrie]

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.

[Carol Hutchinson]

Speechless!!!

Cantor has travelled to Havana in search of her lost love Sophie, but her little trip isn’t as simple as she first thought. With her long-time foe, Sig Lorale having paid her a visit before her trip and putting her in touch with a few of his Cuban contacts, Cantor finds herself running against time, in circles, while trying to navigate the hostility of Cuba’s streets, and most dangerous people and gangs, and most importantly deciphering who she can trust to help her find Sophie.

OMG!!! I couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen in this fourth instalment in the Cantor Gold Crime series and I am praying it is not the last! I can’t even express how much I love this series. If you haven’t read it yet, I can’t recommend it enough. Cantor Gold is one of my all-time favourite characters and I just adore Ann Aptaker’s imagination and talent for creating such an engaging series. This story did not disappoint!

Cantor is one of those characters who I can’t help but fall in love with. Charming, a loveable rogue, a heart of gold, there literally is nothing not to love about her. She is cool, loyal, admirable, and smart beyond belief. How Cantor gets to the bottom of things is beyond me because I never seem to work it out like she does. It makes these stories such a thrill to read and Flesh and Gold was the most intense yet. I was on the edge of my seat, literally, with each turn of a page wondering if finally, after all these years, Cantor was going to find Sophie. Her Sophie.

If you haven’t read the other books in this series, you can read Flesh and Gold standalone, but to really feel the emotional connection this book drives, you need to have read the series. It will help to give context to why Cantor is running around acting like she is in Havana. You’ll only fully understand this if you really know her background, but Ann gives just enough in this story for you get an idea if you aren’t familiar with Cantor already.

There was a time where I was literally holding my breath. The anticipation, the imagery, the build-up and atmosphere Ann creates is phenomenal. Ann Aptaker is definitely one of my all-time favourite authors. She has a real talent for delivering engaging crime noir stories that just leave me feeling emotional and dying to read them again as soon as I can. It’s a personal experience getting involved in the Cantor Gold Crime series, and I love it, so much.

I really can’t recommend this story, and the whole series enough and am so excited to see what the future holds in store for Cantor now.

[Justin]

Will be discussing this book on Point Blank Podcast's "To Have And Have Not" episode in Spring 2019.

pointblankpodcast.com

[Kennedy]

Dapper, dashing, and determined Cantor Gold is at it again. This period piece is so entertaining and unsettling as she steps into the world we know exist but don't care to know more about. As she continues her search for Sophia she finds out who her "friends" are. I like how Cantor is described and I appreciate her self-talk and willingness to show vulnerability.

ARC provided by Bold Strokes Books, Inc. via NetGalley

[Elaine Mulligan]

Entertaining intrigue set in 1952 Batista Havana. Cantor is on a mission where gaining a favor from Myer Lansky himself plays a role. A hardboiled noir with super tough lesbian who get roughed up regularly. The setting was a highlight for me! Sadly the violence in chapter 16 killed my pleasure in the book and Cantor. Others who enjoy violence against the helpless will get a charge out of it. Even Cantor hated herself after it so there is that.

It all started with the first book in the series 2014's Criminal Gold: Midnight, New York Harbor, 1949. Cantor Gold, dapper dyke-about-town, smuggler of fine art, waits in her boat under the Brooklyn Bridge for racketeer Gregory Ortine. In the shadow of the bridge, he’ll toss Cantor a satchel of cash, and she’ll toss him a pouch containing a priceless jewel. But the plan, and the jewel, sink when a woman in a red sequined dress drops from the bridge and slams onto Cantor’s boat. She is Opal Shaw, Society Page darling and fiancée of murder-for-hire kingpin Sig Loreale. Through a night of danger, desire, and double-cross, Cantor must satisfy Loreale’s vengeance, stay ahead of an angry Ortine, and untangle the knots of murder tightening around Opal’s best friend and keeper of her dirty secrets, Celeste Copley, a seductress who excites Cantor’s passion but snares her in a labyrinth of lies. The lies explode in a collision of love, loyalty, lust…and death.

Book 2: New York City, 1950. Cantor Gold hunts for a missing masterpiece she’s risked her life to bring through the port of New York. She must outsmart the Law that wants to jail her; outrun the dockside gangsters who would let her take the fall for murder; and outplay a shady art dealer, his lover, and a beautiful curator who toys with Cantor’s passion. Through it all, Cantor must stay out of the gunsights of a killer who’s knocking off rivals for the missing masterpiece—and stay alive to solve the mystery of her stolen love: Sophie de la Luna y Sol.

Book 3: New York, 1952. From the shadowy docks of Athens, Greece, to the elegance of a Fifth Avenue penthouse, to the neon glare of Coney Island, art smuggler Cantor Gold must track down an ancient artifact, elude thugs and killers, protect a beautiful woman who caters to Cantor's deepest desires, and confront the honky-tonk past which formed her. Memories, murder, passion, and the terrible longing for her stolen love tangle in Cantor's soul, threatening to tear her apart.

[LVLMLeah]

In this Cantor Gold book 4, Cantor is back being her wheeling and dealing with unsavory characters being, however in this book Cantor has to go places even she is disgusted by to get what she wants.

Cantor is a connoisseur of art. She loves it, she knows its value, and she understands a masterpiece when she sees it and experiences it. The overarching theme in all of these Cantor books is that although Cantor is a thief and black market dealer in great pieces of art to high paying customers, there is a masterpiece that Cantor loves more than life itself and it was snatched away from her. She has been trying to get her masterpiece back and in doing so has had to make deals with the devil himself.

After bargaining with those in control of the underworld to get more information on where she can find her love, she gets a good lead and heads to Cuba, a free for all place where anything goes and anything is for sale to the highest bidders.

Cantor does have some connections here and uses them to her advantage. Unfortunately, the information she wants so desperately to get is still elusive and she must constantly make deals with one bad person so that person will give her more information about another bad person who might give her what she wants. As usual she gets embroiled in a lot of nasty business. The difference in this book is now Cantor’s sole focus is getting back her love. She will do anything for that.

I’ve said before and I will say it again, I love Cantor Gold as a character. She’s passionate but also very cool headed and I really enjoy that she has no qualms about mixing it up with anyone who will help her. She walks a fine line constantly and in every situation I was thinking- how will she get out of this? And she always does.

As usual author Ann Aptaker’s prose is so colorful and creates the perfect ambience for the world and time Cantor is in.

Waiting on the next book!

[Sandra de Helen]

This is number four in the Cantor Gold series. Reading this series is being soaked in noir. Mystery, violence, a bit of sex, and detailed (not boring) descriptions of the surroundings brings so much sensory detail that it is hard to climb back out to 2019. A literary escape that is also a page turner. In this book, Gold is searching for the love of her life who was kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery. After three years, Gold is led to Havana. This is Cuba in the early 50s, so flashy cars, tropical shirts and lightweight suits, steamy tropical nights, and mornings filled with streaming sunlight – and gangsters of all sorts. In Aptaker’s world, women are as lethal as men. Gold wears bespoke suits, tailored to hide her gun holster. Gold is up to her usual: stealing paintings, bartering with gangsters, chasing women in glamorous gowns, and drinking way too much Chivas. I loved the book, but I confess to being less than satisfied with the ending. I don’t mind being set up for the next book, but I’m not fond of cliff-hangers. Still, I will read the next book.

[Cindy Stein]

In this 4th book in the series, Cantor Gold travels to Havana after receiving information that her lost love, Sophie, has been taken there by a flesh boat. Cantor's search for Sophie brings her in contact with some of Cuba's most dangerous and underhanded criminals and mobsters, including Meyer Lansky and a street gang headed by a man and his girlfriend, who Cantor learns is the real brains behind the gang.

There's a lot to be said about this book, including the amazing amount of detailed research that went into recreating the Havana of 1952, overrun with criminals looking to make and keep their fortunes, at the same time that street violence is getting out of control and Fidel's army is in the mountains getting ready for the revolution.

The last 1/3 of the book is particularly violent in a cringe-y way (many reviews make note of this). I'm not convinced that the worst of what is included needed to be in the book, but I'm still going with a 5 star review.

This was a riveting for emotionally draining read.

[Garrett Hutson]

This was another great installment for those who are fans of the series, and it picks up right where book 3 ended. Cantor is jetting off to Havana, hot on the trail of the traffickers who snatched her beloved Sophie. Every clue leads her deeper into the quagmire of organized crime and rival gangs in the Cuban capital in January 1952, and along the way she gets blamed for a murder, and forced to solve it in order to curry favor from those nefarious characters who can help her locate Sophie in the ever-shifting sands.

This is a really dark one, even in light of the noir nature of the series. By that, I mean that Cantor is forced to do truly terrible things that she wouldn't ever do under normal circumstances, and which will likely haunt her for the rest of her life. Fans of the series will love it, but if you're new to Cantor Gold you would do best to start at the beginning and not with this one. Those of us who know and love Cantor will thrill at the dangers, and how she escapes them--but if you're new to Cantor, she might not seem as sympathetic as if you've gone through the previous three books with her. I definitely recommend this book, but only if you've read the first three.

[Ashley]

Flesh and Gold was much more than I expected. Cantor Gold, a thief and smuggler, arrives in Havana searching for the love of her life, Sophia, but trouble follows Cantor wherever she goes.
Now, the first thing you need to know is that this is not a romance (like my usual reads). It is the ultimate love story though, seeing the lengths that Cantor was willing to go to find Sophia.
This is very much a crime noir, think mobsters and dens of ill repute (I don’t know how else to say it). Every time I thought I had a line on who was playing who, everything flipped upside down. It’s the best kind of mystery to read.
I like the fact that everything and everybody felt important to the storyline. The detail was rich enough that I could feel the balmy humidity of Havana. I could feel the way passersby stared at Cantor and her suits and masculine attire. The attitudes, language, and buildings placed me in 1950s Havana. There was a bit of violence, some of it a little unbelievable, but Cantor does live on the darker and more dangerous side of the life.

[Anna Furtado]

First, Ann Aptaker is an excellent writer and storyteller. However, a character getting pummeled with the butt end of a gun and sliced with sharp knives for days on end and just popping up to do it again like a blow-up Bozo the clown toy hours later gets tiring and seems very unrealistic. The end of the book was disappointing with questions unanswered and plot points unresolved. It's a cliff-hanger that seems too amateurish for an author of this caliber and feels contrive merely to sell the next book.

[Beth Younge]

I liked the first few chapters but after i while i lost interest. The main character was interesting but i felt that she was a little flat and weak in comparison to what see should have been.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Isidora]

This one was dark. Couldn't put it down and didn't see that ending coming.

[Camilla Queiroz]

Flesh and Gold finalmente avança o plot principal de Cantor Gold, e se tornou meu segundo livro favorito da série. Somos levados até Havana para encontrar Sophie, onde Cantor vai para uma área estranha e precisa aprender a lidar com os players locais para conseguir as informações que precisa.
Boa parte do livro é: Cantor é passada pra trás e precisa resolver o b.o dos outros para conseguir o que quer.
A trama é construída lentamente, se comparada com alguns dos livros anteriores, mas não deixa de ser emocionante, terei muito o que pensar sobre tudo que Cantor se mostrou disposta a fazer para reencontrar Sophie. Creio que no próximo livro teremos uma Cantor bem diferente, depois de tudo que ela passou não há mais volta.
Passarei alguns dias digerindo esse livro, o mais violento até agora, pois só de lembrar de alguns capítulos e principalmente do desfecho meu coracão dispara de aflição.

[Mirrordance]

Comincio dal romanzo numero 4 di questa serie con protagonista Cantor Gold, ladra di opere d'arte a Cuba sulle tracce di una donna rapita dalla tratta delle bianche.
Un po' pulp e un po' hard boiled ma senza essere gratuitamente "graphic", ambientato negli anni '50 ci restituisce un'immagine di una Cuba (non so quanto credibile) in cui bande rivali locali e interessi della malavita americana si incontrano e si scontrano. Cantor si ritrova pedina in una storia che precipita verso la fine senza avere una vera conclusione e ci si aspetta un seguito o una soluzione. La prima parte è raccontata molto bene, ogni passo avanti nella narrazione porta a svelare un nouvo intrigo ma non avvicina al ritrovamento della ragazza rapita. Il finale si risolve in poche pagine ed in un ipotetico cliff-hanger che non sembra credibile dalla sinossi dell'episodio n#5.
Da leggere ancora.

[Cheryl Head]

I love the writing in this series. It's pithy, wise-cracking, noir talk crackling with wit, intelligence and magnificent metaphors. I've always wanted to go to Cuba, especially the sparkling, exotic, forbidden Cuba of the 50's and Flesh and Gold gave me more than I could have imagined. It's all there: the pastel buildings, the formidable sun, the white-walled tires, the architecture, and the rum. And now I know about Cuba's darkest side: sinister, sinful, and dangerous. I'll still go to Cuba. But now I'll avoid some of the backstreets. Great storytelling.

[Jo]

OMG. The angst! That ending! Poor Cantor. Her quest continues...

Fantastic writing. Vivid and hard hitting.

PS. Look closely at Cantor's cigarette fumes on the book cover. Gorgeous art.

[H M]

I don't want to sound harsh but this is not my cub of tea, the ending is just "ugh" i walked fast around the pages since the story was kinda depressing for me yet i wanted to finish the book or give it a chance but man .... so so not my book.

i was giving free copy in exchange of an honest review