Bodega dreams

Hot town, summer in the city... This brilliantly entertaining novel - has it all: cracking dialogue, fast-paced plot, broken hearts and broken dreams, love and passion, betrayal and murder, and extraordinarily vivid characters:Sapo - who bites ('Whass close to my mouth is mine by right and my teeth ain't no fucken pawn-shop'); Chino - trying to get through college and out of the ghetto; Blanca - not allowed to wear jeans but makes up for it with tight, short skirts; Vera - with her dyed blonde hair she could almost be some middle-age Anglo woman with a taste for shopping on Fifth Avenue; Nene - who speaks in song titles ('You know me, I'm just a soul whose intentions are good'); and Willie Bodega - the mover and shaker, king of Spanish Harlem.