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HAVANA BAY
by Martin Cruz Smith
Ballantine, April 2008
352 pages
$7.99
ISBN: 0345390458


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It's 1999, and unhappy Moscow policeman Arkady Renko is asked to go to Cuba to help his old colleague, ex-KGB Colonel, Sergei Pribluda. Renko saw Pribluda as a truly awful person, but a fascinating one. But now Renko is mourning the loss of his lover Irena and he's as disgusted with the excesses of the new Russia as he was with the corrupt old ways. He leaves for Cuba right away to be of service. But he's already too late. As he lands in Cuba, he discovers that what is claimed to be Pribluda's very decomposed body has been fished from Havana Bay. Renko is directed to agree that the body is Pribluda and then leave the country, but although a well-known doctor is insisting that the body is who he says it is, Renko is having trouble agreeing. To his annoyance, Renko is accused of doing what Russia has always done to Cuba, treating its people as incompetent and insulting their expertise.

Alone in his room, the memory of the stupid, accidental death of his lover Irena comes into his mind and he prepares to commit suicide. After his door is kicked in and he's almost stabbed to death, Renko kills his assassin and finds that almost losing his life that way has energized him. Surprisingly the attempt brings back his desire to live and he doubles the energy he brings to the investigation no matter the danger he puts himself into.

Because he was a policeman in Russia and is well prepared to investigate Pribluda's death, Renko tries to find out what happened but he is met by only hostility from the Cubans. Since the Russians abandoned Cuba, leaving it poverty-stricken and crumbling, anything Russian is universally hated there and Renko is only met with contempt.

Doing what he needs to do is difficult for Renko and especially in that small country. Cuba, with its poverty and anger at its former friend and protector, Russia, is a country that now looks with hunger at any tourist trade that can be had. Its pagan form of Catholicism and strangely erotic, exciting music that is played on almost every street corner makes Renko feel completely unnerved. The only one who offers him help, both professionally and in a personal way, is a young female policewoman who was assigned to the Pribluda case. Renko finds himself off balance, as he doesn't know who to trust or how exactly to read the small clues offered to him.

This is the fourth book in the Renko series for the author Martin Cruz Smith and as usual it does not pull any punches. The violence, though completely necessary, is graphic and horrific. There is also torrid sex in this volume and that too has an important place in the plot. The mystery leads the readers into a maze of complex turns as we try to follow Renko's heroic lead.

Powerful, dark, and beautifully written, HAVANA BAY is still up-to-date, even though this is a reissue from 1999. The description of the heated, poverty stricken, and corrupt life in Cuba makes this book worth reading all by itself. Add the complicated plot, and this book won't let you put it down. HAVANA BAY is exceptional reading.

Reviewed by A.L. Katz, April 2008

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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