Midtown Huckster (Alex Cohen #3)
by Leopold Borstinski
Saturday July 18th to Sunday July 25th
I’d been waiting anxiously to read this book since East Side Hustler came out and am so excited to share it!
Book Blurb:
Can you keep your gelt and freedom when the cops have enough evidence to take you down?
1930s Jewish gangster, Alex Cohen runs Murder Inc for Lucky Luciano. After the death of Prohibition he must find a new way to make money, just as the cops are baying at his heels. When Luciano goes down for racketeering, Alex loses his protection and is arrested for tax evasion–he must decide between saving his skin and ratting out his friends.
If he chooses prison time then his gang will fall apart and he will end up with nothing. If he squeals then he will have to flee the city he loves and the family he once adored. What would you do in a world where nobody can be trusted and you have everything to lose?
The third book in the Alex Cohen series is an historical noir novel, which plunges you deep into the early days of narcotics trafficking and the Jewish New York mob. Leopold Borstinski’s piercing crime fiction delivers a fix to every reader like heroin from a needle.
Midtown Huckster is the third installment in the Alex Cohen series, which focuses on the life Alex leads as a member of the Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate. After years of working his way up the ranks, Alex is now one of the bosses, running businesses and conferring with the members of the Syndicate. But after decades of hard work, Alex’s life is falling apart.
The repeal of the Volstead Act means the end of Prohibition, and with it the end of all those lovely profits. Sarah, Alex’s wife, has asked for a divorce after years of their having been separated. Louis Buchalter and Albert Anastasia, Alex’s cohorts in the Murder Corporation, an elite assassination squad are alternately pushing for higher pay or attempting to oust Alex from their group. And through it all, Thomas Dewey is working to bring Organized Crime down.
This book follows Alex through his darkest years yet. Seeing his friends go to prison and trying to avoid the same fate is hard enough; but watching the subtle betrayals from coworkers and the slow dawning of the death of his marriage is painful. I’ve said it before, Alex is not a nice character, but it is incredibly easy to empathize with him. This series is unlike most of the historical fiction I read, told entirely from the view of a gangster; there are no heroes here, only shades of villainry.
One thing really sticks with me, for all that Alex does his best to do well by his fellow gangsters, there really is no honor among thieves.Midtown Huckster spells the end of Alex Cohen’s adventures in New York, but I dearly hope to see him again!
Rating: 4/5
- Title: Midtown Huckster (Alex Cohen #3)
- Author: Leopold Borstinski
- Publisher: Sobriety Press
- Released: July 16th, 2020
- Language: English
- Format: Ebook
- Pages: 218 pages
Leopold Borstinski is an independent author whose past careers have included financial journalism, business management of financial software companies, consulting and product sales and marketing, as well as teaching.
There is nothing he likes better so he does as much nothing as he possibly can. He has traveled extensively in Europe and the US and has visited Asia on several occasions. Leopold holds a Philosophy degree and tries not to drop it too often.
He lives near London and is married with one wife, one child and no pets.
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Much thanks to Damppebbles Blog Tours, Leopold Borstinski and Sobriety Press for this opportunity.
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Glasgow-born, 31 years a Greenock GP, graduate of University of Glasgow (Medicine 1974) and Oxford (MSc Medical Anthropology 2004). Worked also in psychiatry, women’s health, and journalism (Herald, Pulse, Doctor, Channel 4). In retirement took Creative Writing tuition at Glasgow University aiming to pen novels about women doctors (rare in literature except as pathologists or in Mills & Boon). Runner-up in SAW Constable Award 2018, chosen as a 2019 Bloody Scotland Crime Spotlight Author – ‘one to watch.’ Member of several writers’ groups and a short story competition winner, she lives in Ayrshire and enjoys good books, good wine, and good company.
True-born Geordie Colin Garrow grew up in a former mining town in Northumberland and has worked in a plethora of professions including taxi driver, antiques dealer, drama facilitator, theatre director and fish processor, and has occasionally masqueraded as a pirate. Colin has published three stage plays, six adventures for middle grade readers, two books of short stories, the Watson Letters series and the Terry Bell Mysteries. His short stories have appeared in several literary mags, including: SN Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, The Grind, A3 Review, Inkapture and Scribble Magazine. These days he lives in a humble cottage in North East Scotland where he writes novels, stories. poems and the occasional song.
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