Billed as a master of “Cuban noir,” José Latour presents a dark novel of gambling, the American mob, and violence in Havana in 1958, during the presidency of Fulgencio Batista, a friend of mob boss Meyer Lansky. Fidel Castro is making some waves politically with his appeal to the poor, but he is still in the provinces and unlikely to have much influence on Lansky’s gambling empire in the immediate future. Of far more importance to Lansky and his henchmen in Havana is the threat posed by Joe Bonnano and his “family” in New York, mobsters who are threatening to muscle in on a piece of Lansky’s gambling “pie” in Havana. Lansky is deeply involved with the Casino at the Capri Hotel, having made deals with many of the casino’s employees, inspectors, and supervisors. With his direct connection to President Batista, no one in Havana thinks the casino is a mere adjunct to the hotel – the opposite is very much the case. Now, during the World Series between the New York Yankees and the Milwaukee Braves, Lansky’s involvement in gambling extends way beyond the boundaries of the casino, and he expects to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in bets on the games. Complex and exciting in its plotting and fully detailed in its depiction of 1958 Havana, this is a fine novel, bold and masculine in its presentation and full of the violence and uncertainty which presaged Castro’s arrival into Havana.
Read Full Post »
Flemish author Patrick Conrad, who is also a poet, screenwriter, director, and painter, combines his varied talents in this lively and unusual novel of the silver screen, and fans of classic film, including Hollywood’s early black-and-white films, will be kept thoroughly entertained and engaged throughout. Several Antwerp deaths modeled after murders in classic films, or associated with the scandalous lives of Hollywood stars and directors, keep Chief Superintendent Fons Luyckx, known as The Sponge, and his assistant, Detective Inspector Lannoy, involved with all the gory details as they search for real clues to real murders while also searching for the cinema connections which might provide them with suggestions about the possible motivation of the killer or killers. At the heart of the mystery is Professor Victor Cox, who teaches the History of Cinema at the Institute of Film and Theatre Studies and whose wife Shelley vanishes one night, later found dead. The author keeps the tension high as the police (and the reader) try to figure out which famous films provide clues to the various deaths, only one of which is obvious. Original, filled with dark humor, and great fun to read (even for novices to classic film).
Read Full Post »
Set in Spain in 1941 during the rule of General Franco and the Falangists, with their connections to the Nazis, and again in 1981, in the run-up to the first real democratic elections, debut author Victor del Arbol creates a whirlwind of mysteries within mysteries that will keep even the most demanding reader entertained. Filling the novel with twists and turns, surprises, and action that doubles back on itself, the story line constantly changes, rewriting the information we think we already know, and creating new complications to ponder as we try to reconstruct what we think is happening. The interrelationships among the main characters and their families continue for the forty years of the time span, becoming ever more complex as motivations, betrayals, lies we have accepted as truth, and characters who are not who we think they are become central to the action.Complex and challenging in its plotting, the novel is also energetic and fast-paced. The characters are memorable, in part because none of them are perfect, and several are trapped into committing terrible acts because they believe they have no choice. The interrelationships between guilt, innocence, chance, and fate keep the reader engrossed, and though the violence is sometimes excessive and melodramatic, the author avoids neat “fictional packaging” in his ending. Fate rules.
Read Full Post »
James Sallis’s novel Drive, the story of a man who works as a stunt driver by day and as the driver of getaway cars by night, is full of violence, and the body count in the book and film is extremely high, some of the deaths coming at the hands of Driver as payback for egregious betrayals. At the end of the novel and film, Driver leaves this life behind and drives off, seriously wounded. Driven, its sequel, begins six years later. Driver has been keeping a low profile under the pseudonym of Paul West in Phoenix, and he has been successful in avoiding trouble—and in falling in love with Elsa. Suddenly, without warning, he and Elsa are attacked at 11:00 a.m. on a Saturday. Driver manages to disable one attacker, but the second one fatally stabs Elsa before Driver takes care of him. He has no idea who the attackers are or why. In the course of the next few weeks, several more attacks occur, but, still, Driver has no idea who is behind the attacks or why. Eventually, the trail leads to New Orleans, but his connection remains obscure. As one of Driver’s friends comments, “Do the dots connect? Could be all random. Separate storms. And in the long run what does it matter?” Fans of the book and film of Drive will enjoy seeing how Driver’s life evolves after that novel concludes.
Read Full Post »
In this seventh novel in the Harry Hole series to be translated into English, author Jo Nesbo, with over eleven million thrillers in print, continues to detail Harry’s fight against the symbolic “white whales” of injustice. Here, all Harry’s experience and knowledge as an Oslo policeman are readied for the biggest fight of his life, one to which he willingly makes a complete emotional commitment. Though he has lived in Hong Kong in self-imposed exile for three years, Harry has just learned that Oleg, the son of Rakel, the love of his life, is now jailed on remand in Oslo for the murder of a drug dealer and is, surprisingly, a drug addict himself. Harry himself has always had problems with alcohol, bureaucratic nonsense, and self-control, even during his career with the Oslo Police, and he has battle scars, both visible and invisible, which have made him a cynical man. He immediately returns to Oslo to review the case, hoping that he can save Oleg, who has always thought of him as “Dad.” Now “clean,” Harry sets to work to find out more about Oleg’s involvement in this case that he must win.
Read Full Post »
