This is a book you don't want to miss.
It keeps you interested throughout the entire
book. I just kept trying to guess who was involved
with the murders but it was to tricky. So many things
were going on you didn't want to put the book
down. I would really like to see this book put
on the big screen or even a T.V. movie. If you like
thrillers don't miss this one.

In a land of religious voodoo and secret police, Devlin's detective skills are foreign for a country that seems to be in a mercurial state of chaos and poverty. He's not sure whether the local cops are good guys or bad guys. And he needs a score card to figure out what the nine different law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction over. In a state of utter confusion, he enlists his in-your-face partner and sidekick, Ollie Pitts, to come to the red nation to help make sense out of this and the evolving and bizarre clues surrounding the missing aunt and Cuban hero. New York's finest soon learn that witch craft and human sacrifice are a religious way of life for many in Cuba.

Devlin is use to the standard fare of chasing the bad guys around in the Big Apple. But it seems the opposite is happening in Cuba while he, tough-guy Pitts and the local police hunt for the missing Red Angel. But why are the Americans themselves being hunted on the island? The quid quo pro chase makes for a constant nerve-racking suspense. And with religion and other belief systems in constant play, it seems that anything is possible. All the possibilities surrounding the missing Red Angel are sorted out with a clever, intriguing and satisfying close to this continuing Paul Devlin mystery series novel.

When the threesome set out to find the Red Angel's body, they confront the sinister head of the Cuban secret police, Colonel Cabrera, who says he wants to help, but is actually in cohoots with the Mafia henchmen that Devlin has been dealing with in New York.

So much for the beginning...the plot only thickens from this point on. There are so many twists, turns, political innuendos, and black magic to absorb in this book that you're guaranteed to lose some sleep, if not from the action, then certainly from trying to keep up with who's who and what's what.

Overall this was a very entertaining read. Although it does get bogged down with details in several spots, I made it to the end quite satisfied.

I would rate this 3 and 1/2 stars. The characters lack some depth, the explanations were a bit too long in spots, but Heffernan is a very smart writer who handles a ton of information and a very eager audience quite deftly.

WINTER"S GOLD" started with the interesting premise of a handicapped, former Olympic female athlete being found in a bathtub as an apparent suicide. There was no suspense whatsoever before we were led into what quickly became a 'murder' scene. We were given too much information about the detecting Devlin wanted his people to do. Why so much f...ing language? The word can be effective when not overused. The police surely can't talk that way in every conversation, but if they do I don't want to read every bleeping word.

I managed to finish the book, but lost interest in who actually did the murder because the author didn't make me care that much about his characters nor his protagonist.

Lately many authors insert gay and/or lesbian characters which is certainly appropriate. The problem I find with that, as in WINTER'S GOLD, is that the character is not handled very well. Levy, the lesbian cop, was a good idea in this book due to the tastes of Winter himself, who used lesbians to arouse himself, but I didn't get a good feeling what Levy was about other than her snappy comebacks at Boom Boom, the stereotyped racist, ethic slurring and homophobic cop.

Enjoyed the tactics used in the morgue on the germophobic killer to force him to reveal information. However, I found it unbelievable that as busy as medical examiners and their staffs are, they would take the time to set up this charade for one cop.

The Agatha Christie twist at the end was a good idea, but...again, I was just glad to finish the book and even that finish was an anticlimax for me.