Cleopatra Gold

Rating:
Summary: Great build up, lousy ending
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Great build up, lousy ending
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Author Caunitz Is The Master Of Police Thrillers
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A fast read, entertaining, provocative, worthy of your time.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting thriller.
Review: I read the first three books from this author when they appeared in the mid to late 1980's. I liked 'One Police Plaza' but wasn't so impressed with 'Black Sand' and 'Suspects' so I moved away from this author. About 18 months ago, I picked up his sixth book 'Pigtown', read it and liked it. This is the preceding novel.

There is a group of people smuggling heroin (Cleopatra Gold) into the US in general and New York in particular. The NYPD try to infiltrate this ring, but after three of their undercover agents are killed, they have to try an alternative route. The investigating officer then asks if there is a deep undercover agent ("Who runs the Job's deep undercovers?" "I really don't know. I'm not even sure we have any.") that could be used to infiltrate the network. The book then focuses around a half Irish, half Indian nightclub singer who emerges to take on the network.

The author is a retired NYPD detective lieutenant and this shows in all of his books. The investigative work carried out by the LEAs is described in detail, often using expressions found in the NYPD. The technology used is also described in detail, making this book seem very realistic, to the point of this reader feeling that it could almost have been based on true events.

This however, is also to the disadvantage of the book. For me, a thriller is supposed to keep up a quick pace, but I found that some of the lengthy, detailed descriptions of equipment and procedure slowed the pace of this book down a bit too much for my liking. I do realise that these things are part of any investigation, and it isn't all fast-paced action.

Having said that though, I would say that a little more action would have improved this book for me, rather than a little less description of the bits and pieces involved, IMO. Hence the summary, an *interesting* thriller.

3.5 out of 5 for this one, I think.

David Lucas ([e-mail]).

Rating:
Summary: Cleopatra Bronze
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: Cleopatra Bronze
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: MY FAVORITE CAUNITZ TO DATE!
Review: 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!

Rating:
Summary: The book had a great in depth perception of police work.
Review: The author has a wonderful knowledge of the workings of a deep undercover detective/narcotics investigator. He shows this by taking you into the life of a deep undercover detective, how he got there and the non existant life he leads, a life of lies. When reading this book, it draws you into the world of a deep undercover. You feel as though you are right there beside him risking your life to do the job which you he set out to do. The author draws you into the book by using his extensive knowledge of police work and that of others. Once you start reading the book, it is hard to put it away. The book keeps you in suspense to the degree that you have to keep reading to find out what will happen to the deep undercover. Will his cover be blown, will he be killed or will he finish thge job he set out to fulfill.