Shoeshine Boy & Cigarette Girl (Stars and Sabers Publishing)
P.A. Cornell
This book was a nice mix of 40’s true crime novel and retrofuturism. All of the characters are referred to by their function, not just the protagonists. It’s a somewhat mindless romp–like a B-grade movie that gets an extra star for style– and that still has a few surprises. P.A. Cornell makes it seamless.
Shoeshine Boy is naive as a newborn lamb, but kind and sweet. Cigarette Girl is worldly-wise and a pick pocket. But love has thrown odder combinations of people together and Cornell makes this work, too.
They both cross paths with “the Man,” a con artist, without realizing the other one has crossed paths with him too, and they very, very nearly get swindled. How they get out of it makes for a nice ending.
Nostalgia for a simpler time, and for our earlier simpler hopes for the future, made me smile repeatedly. This would be a good beach read for SF & F fans.