Cantor first appeared in Criminal Gold and the one of the best ways to learn about  person is by asking questions, so let’s get to know Cantor.

What is your name?
Cantor Gold. Okay, so it’s an odd name for a female, but I’m not the usual female, and the name suits me just fine.

How old are you?
Late 30s/looking at 40.

What is your profession?
Successful art thief and smuggler in 1950s New York.

Do you have a significant other?
The love of my life was kidnapped. I have been searching for her.

What is her name and profession?
Sophie de la Luna y Sol.

Any children?
No.

Do you have any sibling(s)?
No. My immigrant parents had a tough enough time handling tomboy me back in the old days in Coney Island.

Cats, dogs or other pets?
No.

What town do you live in?
New York City. It’s the center of the art world, the center of my criminal underworld. It’s my hometown.

House or building complex? Own or Rent?
Rent a great apartment in the Theater District.

What is your favorite spot in your house?
The big red chair in my living room.

Who is your best friend?
It’s evolving.

Amateur sleuth or professional?
As a professional criminal, I know a lot about the people who commit crime. I am comfortable moving around in the underworld when I need to find a killer.

Whom do you work with when sleuthing?
I have a group of colleagues I trust: Judson Zane, a young man with a talent for digging for information; Rosie Bliss, a cabbie with sharp driving/getaway skills; Red Drogan, a tug boat captain who knows how to slip me in and out of New York Harbor on the quiet.

Favorite beverage?
Chivas Regal scotch/ black coffee.

Favorite hobby?
Enjoying a drink and a dance at The Green Door Club.

Favorite sports team?
New York Yankees.

Movies or Broadway?
Broadway.

Are you a morning or a night person?
Night. The city’s heart beats faster at night. Its nervous system tingles, its nerve ends stand up. The people feel it, and we are all more alive.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
After breakfast at the counter at Pete’s Luncheonette, where Doris pours the best coffee in New York, I go to my office, a nondescript little brick building across the street from the Hudson River docks. Judson Zane will tell me what clients want, what I’m lined up to steal or smuggle. If all goes well, I’ll bring the goods into New York without incident. But that’s not usually the way it goes. Someone usually tries to muscle in, or a cop thinks they can pin me, or a woman thinks she can distract me, or someone tries to kill me. I’m always on my guard, protecting my life—and protecting my heart from breaking completely from the loss of my beloved Sophie.

Giveaway: Leave a comment below for your chance to win copy of Flesh and Gold, either Kindle, Nook, PDF (open to everyone) or print (U.S. residents only), winner’s choice. The giveaway will end October 3, 2018. Good luck everyone!

You can read about Cantor in Flesh and Gold, the fourth book in the “Cantor Gold” mystery series.

Havana, 1952, a city throbbing with pleasure and danger, where the Mob peddles glamour 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 Colon, 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.

Purchase Link
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About the author
Lammy and Goldie winner, native New Yorker Ann Aptaker’s first book, Criminal Gold, was a Golden Crown Literary Society’s Goldie Award finalist. Her next book, Tarnished Gold (Book Two in the Cantor Gold Crime Series), was honored with a Lambda Literary Award and a Goldie Award, the only mystery to win both awards for the same book. The third book in the series, Genuine Gold, won the 2018 Goldie Award. Book four, Flesh and Gold, is the newest book in the ongoing series.

Ann’s short stories have appeared in two editions of the crime anthology Fedora, edited by the noted crime author Michael Bracken. Her flash fiction story, “A Night In Town,” appeared in the online zine Punk Soul Poet, and another flash fiction story is featured in the anthology edited by Lee Lynch and Renee Bess, “Our Happy Hours: LGBT Voices in the Gay Bars..” Ann is an art writer for various New York clients, has been a contributing writer to the children’s science television show “Space Racers,” and is an adjunct professor of art and art history at the New York Institute of Technology.

Connect with Ann on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

All comments are welcomed.