Murder and Gold

Ann Aptaker

Jul 2021 · Bywater Books

About this ebook

New York City, 1954.
Two women are found murdered. One is Lorraine Quinn, Cantor Gold’s most recent one-night-stand. The other is political power broker and aspiring New York socialite Eve Garraway, a regular client of Cantor’s stolen art trade.
Police nemesis, Lieutenant Norm Huber, wants to pin the murders on Cantor, send her to prison, and put her in the electric chair. He’ll get evidence on her any way he can. Into this cauldron of danger and death come two other women, each with ties to Cantor’s past. One hates her until passion intervenes; the other harbors darkly hidden feelings.
Set during the earliest stirrings of the Homosexual Rights Movement, Cantor begins to question her own tenuous identity, and the trade-offs she must make to get what she wants.
Cantor Gold, dapper butch art thief and smuggler for whom survival is everything, must now grapple with two fronts: surviving the shifting sands of the criminal underworld, and navigating the changing tides of society.

Ratings and reviews

My running thought as I read Ann Aptaker’s latest Cantor Gold drama was this would be an excellent Netflix series. Its gritty storytelling splendidly captures a way of life and time that has long passed, but still provides the most intriguing crime stories. Moreover, readers can not resist the charm of Cantor Gold; her magnetism and bravado swaggers itself across the page like no other butch in lesfic noir today. She’s as suave and debonair as she is miscreant and daring, and that makes for one compelling character. Murder and Gold is the fifth book in the series, but it can be read as a stand alone. Aptaker’s writing is rich and vibrant, perfectly capturing the time and place it illustrates. The words flow smoothly across the page and draw the reader into a fascinating story world. The pacing is absolutely flawless, as readers are engaged throughout every twist and turn of this well-scripted plot. The dialogue is sharp, unflinching and perfect for the people behind the words. Aptaker takes care to make it reflect the steely, unyielding underbelly of 1954 New York, as its tone and tenor are essential to the storytelling. The byproduct of Aptaker’s meticulous work is one gripping and edgy drama from cover to cover. Of course Aptaker is no literary novice; she’s an established NYC writer with ties to both the mystery-writing and the queer-writing communities. This series alone shows she’s more than capable of writing about cynically questionable characters involved in morally ambiguous activities, as it has landed her Lambda Literary and Goldie Awards. She’s more than proven she knows how to pull all the finer literary elements together. However, where she really shines is her use of secondary characters. They are often colorful and provocative, but always genius in use. They advance the storytelling beautifully and give it the compelling edge that’s needed for a hard-boiled crime drama. The final result is a well-executed story, making Murder and Gold one outstanding read. Final remarks… Beware: Cantor Gold can become addicting. Aptaker’s talented pen pulls readers into Cantor’s world and doesn’t easily let go. Her depiction of thievery and lawbreaking is made to seem not only gritty and dramatic, but sexy and seductive as well. I recommend you pick this one up. It is absolutely fantastic and it leaves me eagerly awaiting her next installment to the Cantor Gold series. Strengths… Well-written Well-plotted Well-told Fantastic characters Fantastic setting Fantastic dialogue

About the author

Native New Yorker Ann Aptaker's Cantor Gold Crime series has been the recipient of Lambda Literary and Goldie Awards. Her short stories have appeared in two editions of the crime anthology Fedora, Switchblade Magazine’s "Stiletto Heeled" issue, and in the Mickey Finn crime anthology. She is one of six writers invited to provide a novella for the second season of Down & Out Books’ crime series Guns & Tacos. Her flash fiction, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the ezine Punk Soul Poet, and another flash fiction, “Rockin’ Dyke Roll,” is featured in the award-winning anthology Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices From The Gay Bars. Culminating a career as a curator for museums and galleries, Ann is currently an art writer for various New York clients and is an adjunct professor of art history at the New York Institute of Technology.