King Bongo: A Novel of Havana

King Bongo is an insurance agent with a private eye license in 1957 Cuba. The bearded ones are in the hills, putting pressure on the corrupt government. A cross dressing assassin is hunting the president. Two goons from America are hunting the Assassin. King Bongo is hunting his missing sister. Everybody seems to be hunting King Bongo. Sometimes this book seems to be going where it isn't, but there's nothing you can do about that, because Sanchez grabs you right from the beginning and keeps tugging at you all the way through the story as you find yourself driving that Oldsmobile Rocket with Bongo as he tries to track down his beautiful, but missing sister. Bongo is such a wonderful smuck who is afraid of nothing. His friends are loyal. His enemies formidable and the story is glorious. Circles within circles, prose to die for, characters you'll never forget. Books just don't get better than this.

Coming from a person who doesnt read much at all (excluding the type under pictures in magazines) This was a great get back into reading experience! I loved the book. After about 50 or so pages I thought, this would make a great movie. It played out like that in my mind so well and vivid. Maybe thats the beauty of a well written tale.

I have read most of Sanchez's novels. King Bongo does not dissapoint. What really amazes me is that this is not a best seller. This story has everything: mystery, history and humor. It brings Havana of the 50's alive. The writing is both intelligent and easy to read. If you want a great summer read and a story that will stay with you forever READ King Bongo. Wake up Hollywood this novel would make a great film.

Thomas Sanchez has created in KING BONGO a post-modern legendary novel, rich and mythological. Like Graham Green in his time, Sanchez has the courage to write about how politics shaped a particular cultural moment . Don't be misled that the politics are the author's, as some will mistakenly present them to be, in the same way that Green was often misinterpreted. Sanchez did not write a revisionist history, seen from a half-century on. He wrote about high and low society and everything in between, about politics both personal and self serving, about dreams, desires and obsessions, tossing them all into the conflicted boiiling stew that was Havana in the mid-1950s. This book is for those with open minds and prepared for an unforgetable wild ride.

Thomas Sanchez is back in the tropical millieu of his epic novel "Mile Zero", where a raft of odd characters love, fight, dance, and struggle, this time not in Key West, but in 1957 Havana. With revolutionaries in the hills and fading, decadent stars prowling the casinos and nightclubs of Havana, a man half American and half Cuban struggles to find his beloved sister after she disappears in a New Year's Eve bombing; he also struggles to find himself in a place rife with corruption and glitz, where the rich rule like gods and literally get away with murder, and the poor live wretched lives. It's all here in this fast-paced thriller that reads like a classic noir deepened with the same humor, wisdom and pathos that has marked Sanchez's writing since he burst out of nowhere 30 years ago with Rabbit Boss, and kept going with Zoot Suit Murders, Mile Zero, and Day of the Bees. You will love this book.