Product Description

Lieutenant Mario Conde is suffering from a terrible New Year's Eve hangover. Though it's the middle of a weekend, he is asked to urgently investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rafael Morin, a high-level business manager in the Cuban nomenklatura. Conde remembered Morin from their student days: good-looking, brilliant, a "reliable comrade'' who always got what he wanted, including Tamara the girl Conde was after. But Rafael Morin's exemplary rise from a poor barrio and picture perfect life hide more than one suspicious episode worthy of investigation. While pursuing the case in a decaying but adored Havana, Conde confronts his lost love for Tamara and the dreams and illusions of his generation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #242257 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 286 pages

Review
This wide ranging book deals with so many issues in a sensitive way, from diagnosis to acceptance, from self-respect and fulfilment to Viagra! There is also practical advice about benefits, physiotherapy and the MS Society itself.
--MS Connect

About the Author
Leonardo Padura was born in 1955 in Havana and lives in Cuba. He is a novelist, essayist, journalist and scriptwriter. Havana Blue is the third of the Havana Quartet to be published in English. It has been published in Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France.

Customer Reviews

Okay
This is a novel about Cuba. Indeed, Cuba might be said to be the main character. Padura's characters are the same age as him, approaching 40 in the 1990s, "a faceless, aimless, gutless generation."

It is a detective novel of the hard-boiled school, and reviewers have compared the style to Raymond Chandler's; but Chandler was never so crude. In Carofiglio's The Past is a Foreign Country (which I read shortly before this) there was a character who "liked to swear. He probably thought it made him sound virile ... The effect was quite the opposite, but he would never know." I'm afraid the central character's language reminded me of this comment. This may have been at least partly because of the translation, which was stilted in parts and contained some strange figures of speech.

Since the book is about Cuba, we have cigars, food, some music, rum and cheap wine, drinking and hangovers. The story concerns the disappearance of a businessman (actually, someone in a Government ministry, since this is Cuba). The disappeared man (Rafael), his wife, and Conde the detective all grew up together. Rafael disappears and the questioning of those who knew him - which takes up the bulk of the narrative - tells his story, illustrating different facets of him and of Cuba's recent history.

Interesting on Cuba, but not a great crime novel.

A little gem
This series offers crime thrillers with the twist of the detective (the melancholic Inspector Conde) needing to deal with the political intrigues of Communist Cuba. It doesn't dwell on politics but focuses on Conde's friendships and the unfulfilled promise of the Cuban revolution. Not a complex plot but you should read this to get a feel for the atmosphere of Cuba and Havana.