Cleopatra Gold

I've read several of Caunitz's novels and have enjoyed them all, particularly PIFTOWN and CHAIN OF COMMAND. I loved CLEOPATRA GOLD and simply could not put it down! My only complaint is that I did not want it to end!

Author and former lieutenant of the NYPD Caunitz is the best of the police procedureal novelists, the most innovative, and one writer who gives you uncensored dialogue. You recognize it as fact; he's been there. His other books tell stories from the police side of things. This one tells about the narcotic trade from the inside as the reader follows the dangerous life of a detective who goes undercover. There is a crushing anaconda, a mysterious feminine killer, and much more. Novelists are able to deduct travel from their income tax which is why we see so many exotic locations in these books and this one is no exception. Some authors end up sounding like travel writers but Caunitz makes it work. Other thriller writers have achieved more fame but no one makes police/detective stories LIVE the way this author does. Try it, you'll like it.

Alejandro Monahan is the son of a NY cop and Mexican Indian mother. The old man "retired" to raise his family in the Baja and was killed by drug lords tied to the title drug. Alejandro is now a sexy club singer and also Chilebean, a deep cover agent with the NYPD looking to avenge his father's death. Ther characters are great: Che-Che, Roberto Barrios and Pizzaro on the drug side; Too Tall Paulie, Sal Elia and Joey the G-man for the cops. You're never sure who's the real boss is or where the line between undercover agents and the drug business is drawn. Amidst a lot of action Alejandro convinces Che-Che he can guarantee safe importation of heroine using a military guided parachute technology.With 100 pages to go, the shipment has landed and the multiple Cleopatra lines develop: the drug, the queen and a woman whose father called her that. I had it at five stars until the end, which was just too Hollywood and dropped it down to four. A lousy ending, but an otherwise great cop / druggie story.

I'm used to reading page turners. There were too many characters in this book and I found it a bit hard to catch up to them, and who was the good guy or the bad guy. However, there were plenty of action going on enough to make this book into a movie--people getting shot and killed, cars blowing up, etc., drug abuse, sex, blood everywhere, and ridiculous spy devices put inside genital orifice unheard of in real life. I wasn't too happy about the ending and I thought the Alejandro character wasn't appropriate. A latin singer and a cop? Come one! I found that tacky!

I just finished Cleopatra Gold and I am impressed with the story. Simple, direct, and believable, CG is a fast read. A book needs to take you by the shirt and pull you into the drama. This book does that. I read the first half on the plane to Atlanta and the second half on the way home. It is easy to identify with Alejandro's loneliness. His ability to differentiate what is real and what is a lie is worthy of the best of heroes. Alejandro wants a normal life, but his work is like an aphrodisiac to him. While he longs to get out, he can't bring himself to ask his handlers to allow it. His continual battle with himself adds to the suspense of the book as one could expect the average person to give it all up. But Alejandro is not your average person. An average person could not live a lie for five years and be a person that didn't exist before. The characters are believable. The scenario is believable. The only thing that troubled me was the last three pages of the book. Caunitz brings to a close most of the loose ends as he usually does. I object that the ending is a short four pages after the climatic scene where the bad guys go down and the good guys win. Real life isn't able to wrap up an episode with such a pretty bow and send everyone who experiences it down the road best chosen for them. But then, a good book is allowed to have nicely wrapped endings. We wouldn't read them otherwise.