Hunting Gold by Ann Aptaker

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The details…

  • Author: Ann Aptaker
  • Title: Hunting Gold
  • Publisher: Bywater Books
  • Publication date: July 12, 2022
  • ISBN: 978-1-61294-237-7
  • Available formats: paperback & eBook
  • File size: 1762 KB
  • Print length: 265
  • Genre: Fiction / Historical / Mystery / Noir / LGBTQ
  • Themes: 1950’s, art smuggling, the crime underworld of New York City, the 1950’s lgbtq community

The blurb from the publisher…

A golden city of prosperity, energy, the exciting engine of the American Dream. Just underneath, though, is a dark city, with darker ambitions. This is the world of Cantor Gold, dapper art thief and smuggler, who has her own way of securing the rewards of the American Dream. In the conformist 1950s, when same-sex romance was illegal, Cantor decides that any Law that condemns her as a criminal just for her love of women is not a Law she owes any allegiance to. As an outlaw, she thrives earning fistfuls of cash and living life on her own terms. But someone wants to take it all away. Someone wants to rob Cantor of everything: her success in the underworld, her freedom, her life.

Predators are out to destroy Cantor: the cops who violently raid the Green Door Club, Cantor’s favorite watering hole, where the lights are low and the women are willing; and worse, an unknown predator who threatens to destroy Cantor’s life, even destroy the lives of people close to her.

Murder is one of the weapons in the hunter’s arsenal, involving Cantor in the dangerous fate of each corpse. Another is the taunting, threatening notes that turn up on the corpses or at Cantor’s door or at the door of people she visits. And then there are the phone calls and a disguised voice. Someone is invading every minute of Cantor Gold’s life.

My thoughts…

Cantor Gold is beyond irresistible, and fans of period-piece mysteries should all sit up straight and take notice when a new Cantor Gold story hits the shelf. She’s charming, suave and a whole lot of trouble, but that might be because she’s a high-end art thief. The fact that she’s not exactly a law abiding citizen doesn’t seem to lessen her appeal; readers still love her. She’s unwaveringly loyal and considerately fair minded, a head-scratching contradiction for a woman of crime. When Ann Aptaker created Gold, she struck it rich with this captivating character, and her latest book in the series is a real gem.

Since Bywater Books announced the mid-July release of Hunting Gold, I’ve been anxiously awaiting its arrival. Let me tell you, the wait was worth it! Aptaker really delivers with this latest book in the Cantor Gold series; it’s a real treat for fans. Often by the fifth or sixth book in a series, things start to get saggy—the plot begins to run thin or the characters begin to look flat. Readers start to lose interest and push the series aside. Not so here; book six is no less appealing than book one. Why? Because Aptaker keeps the storyline fresh, invigorating it with new ideas and surprising character developments. She doesn’t get lazy with the writing. She continues to challenge Cantor, the series’ main character, giving her room to grow and change. Aptaker takes advantage of Cantor’s complex character and flexes her writing muscles, giving readers plenty of twists and turns, keeping them reading late into the night. Quite simply, Hunting Gold is brilliant storytelling and a masterful work of craftsmanship.

Because the Cantor Gold series has been the recipient of Lambda Literary and Goldie Awards in the past, it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with her work that she’s done her homework and provided readers with a solidly constructed plot befitting the era. Historical fiction requires detailed, believable story worlds and Hunting Gold’s is well suited for its genre and themes. It’s always good when readers are fully engrossed in the world in which the main character inhabits. It makes for exciting reading and Aptaker excels at this. She structures gorgeous settings, layering them with all the appropriate sights and sounds befitting for New York, 1955. Aptaker paints a perfect picture of the seedy side of the city and readers can’t look away. 

Final remarks…

Ann Aptaker is a talented writer that knows how to create good, old-fashioned crime novels infused with the perfect amounts of mystery and suspense. Her latest book Hunting Gold is a real treat for period-piece fiction lovers. It slides right into the existing series arc nicely and gives readers more to hope for in book seven. If you aren’t familiar with the Cantor Gold series and enjoy well-written mysteries, then I’d urge you to invest yourself in this one. Get to know Cantor from the beginning though; she’s an excellent character and gets better with each book.

Strengths…

  • Well-written 
  • Well-paced
  • Entertaining story
  • Intriguing mystery
  • Great characters 

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Other books in this series…

A bit 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. 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.

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