Havana Gold

At 35, Mario Conde, "the Count" laments the state of his life… a policeman who dreams of being a writer. How did he wind up in this life? He can't understand it. He and his friends had such dreams… This is the heart of the story…the murder of a teacher at Conde's high school ("Pre-Uni) brings about reminisces of his time there. What could he and his friends be if they still had their time again? This book, as well as the previous one in the series, "Havana Blue", is not a typical detective novel. The crime is a McGuffin, a backdrop that helps move the story of the Count's sorrowful tale of lost love, regrets, and dying dreams. As he reflects, "writing is difficult, that writing is something almost sacred and even painful" and that being a policeman has sapped all his emotional energy. "Creating something will be a way of leaving a legacy for the future. Would he ever write again? Will he ever become a writer? He thought it alarming how easily heaven and earth could combine to crush a man like a sandwich about to be chomped painfully". p. 285 5 stars and looking forward to the next book in the series, "Havana Red". The translator is British and reads well.

This is the fourth of the Mario Conde books. This novel documents an interesting time in Cuban history, the tail end of the Soviet Union when Cuba's socialist system was working. Conde, as many of the protaganists in Cuban art, struggles against the need to be a part of the collective, which means reining in his free spirit. Great characters and an interesting glimpse of how in a socialist society, greed, jealousy and ambition push people to go past society's limits. Lots of interesting details about CUban life in the 1980's, an era some call the "Golden Age" of Cuban socialism.

I recommend the entire Havana Quartet. This is the Mystery genre combined with that 'mysterious' thing we call Literature. In the not-too-distant future, when Havana is destroyed by MacDonalds, Starbucks, and Target, these books will no doubt recall a different era in Havana that one may look back to with nostalgia (not so different, perhaps, that one feels for New York City before it became something between Las Vegas and Disneyworld for the rich, famous, and wretched!). After reading the Quartet, I also recommend the other Mario Conde mystery entitled, "Adios, Hemingway." Another Mario Conde mystery set six, seven years later.

In 1989 Cuban police detective Mario Conde hates being a cop as he would have preferred to be a writer. However, no matter how he tries to romanticize his existence, he must eat and so cop he is. Drinking helps him when state sponsored corruption interferes with his investigation. His current case makes him want to quit in order to turn into a 24/7 alcoholic. Someone murdered pretty Pre-University High School schoolteacher, Lissette Nunez Delgado. This particular inquiry hits home as Conde went to school here when he dreamed of becoming a Cuban Hemingway. As he interviews the headmaster, staff and pupils, Conde wonders what happened to his dreams and those of his countrymen. The fourth Havana police procedural is a great tale (likes its colorful predecessors) that follows one year in the life of a dedicated cynical Cuban cop. The story line is fast-paced as Conde investigates the murder of a young popular teacher, but runs into bureaucracy from the school and his superiors. However, the key to this saga remains the disenchanted hero who struggles to do his job properly, which to him means solving the case, but to others connotes satisfying the state and the Party. Harriet Klausner