Under the Mink: A Novel

Devotees of the lesbian pulp romances of the '50s and '60s will want to sink into this smoky noir thriller set in Greenwich Village in the years just after World War II. Blackie Cole is a tuxedo-wearing butch whose soulful singing at the Candy Box, a Mafia-run nightclub, attracts a host of swooning regulars, as well as a lively mix of uptown types, from successful, secretly kiki actresses to rich gay men to straight couples out for a peep at the queers. None know that it's Blackie's bad luck in love that makes her songs so powerful. Her beautiful, hard-drinking lover, Renee, a stripper, has just moved out of Blackie's apartment and into an upscale brothel run by the nefarious Lucille. But between the mob on one side and the cops on the other, Blackie has more to worry about than her aching heart--especially when she stumbles on a corpse in the men's room of the Candy Box. The faults of this plucky first novel are simply the faults of the genre that it mimics: stock characters and overheated prose. But Blackie and her immediate circle are well drawn, and her dilemma is satisfyingly resolved.--Regina Marler