Player's Vendetta: A Little Havana Mystery

When Lantigua was a reporter at the Miami Herald, you could count on him to find the most interesting and ironic slants on news stories and features, always written at a superior level. He doesn't disappoint in Player's Vendetta, writing at a level high above the characteristic original paperback, with an insight into human character and motivation that will make you smile and nod in agreement, and maybe even raise a goosebump here and there. I remember one of the great things about reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books was coming across the perfect pearls, paragraphs that are wise and poetic and worth re-reading a few times, some for the way the words play with each other, some for their exploration of a human soul. Among many others, Lantigua comes up with such unexpected treasures when his detective Willie Cuesta is tailing a young woman who been smuggled into the country and might be a Cuban spy."The whole time she wore an expression of wonder mixed with trepidation, the look a little girl might get if she were doing something forbidden. And after a while that nettled Willie because it reminded him so much of his former wife. Her name was Natalia and she too had sailed across the water from Cuba. Not on a pleasure craft, but on a raft constructed from wood and inner tubes, balanced with bottles of fresh water hanging at the sides and equipped with umbrellas for shade..."Willie had been a Miami Police Officer who was assigned to take the refugees into custody at the dock: "Willie recalled approaching the fishing boat and spotting her right away, standing on the deck with a white shirt knotted beneath her breasts and sunbleached jeans, thick dark hair tangled by the sea wind and full of salt, cheekbones burnt by the sun. And in the midst of that sea-scalded face, two lustrous dark eyes that, despite a long tiring ordeal at sea were full of emotion. They were eyes you knew had been pegged to the horizon for days, not only in search of salvation from the sea, but in hopes of a new life. Even though she was safe now, she still wore that searching hopeful gaze."Lantigua describes the two year marriage and its inevitable breakup as the naive young Natalia blossoms into her own strong identity: "Eventually he understood that you could provide safe harbor for another adult only for a time and then they had to face the elements on their own no matter what you wanted. He also realized that the gods wouldn't be the gods if they didn't screw with you from time to time..." So if you are a refugee from the many books full of cardboard characters who jaunt from plot-point to plot-point on the obvious whim of an author in search of a reason to continue writing, I'd recommend Player's Vendetta, which delves into the most interesting and ironic aspects of living in Miami and the people who live here. I enjoyed the book as much for its journey as its final destination.