Havana Bay: A Novel (Mortalis)
by Martin Cruz Smith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Martin Cruz SmithEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-20
ISBN: 0345502981
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Book Reviews of Havana Bay: A Novel (Mortalis)
Book Review: A very different look at Cuba through the eyes of Arkady Renko
Summary: 5 Stars
A while back, I had tried to read this novel, but had stopped after about thirty pages, as my heart wasn't really into reading it. I won't mention what the incident in the book was, but it was nearly enough to make me throw the book at the wall and vow not to give it another try. Happily, I confess that the second go at this one was the winner.
Havana Bay is the fourth book in the ongoing series about a cynical, jaded detective, Arkady Renko. This time, instead of Moscow or the Siberian hinterlands, he's in Cuba. Called there by the death of a man who might be his old foe and friend, Sergei Pribluda, it's a strange, vibrant world that Arkady finds himself in.
Expensive '50's American cars roll down the streets, mixed in with Russian imports from the seventies and eighties, music is constantly in the air, and there's heady mix to the air that in spite of Castro's dictatorship, some freedoms can be had. For a tourist, it can be a paradise of cheap rum, the jineteras -- the prostitutes that crowd the clubs and streets -- deep sea fishing, and of course, cigars.
But Arkady isn't a tourist this time. He isn't at all certain that the body is Pribluda, and says so. The Cuban officials aren't happy at all, they just want Renko to pick up the body and go back to Moscow. But of course he won't do that. So as usual, he starts stirring things up a bit up in usual style.
This doesn't please anyone, as Russians, either alive or dead, are not very popular in Cuba since the gravy train stopped rolling in from Moscow. Almost at once Renko finds himself the target of an assassin, and it's enough to start shaking him out of the suicidal stupor that he has been in since a terrible loss. It also binds him closer to two detectives -- one is the menacing Sgt. Luna, from the Ministry of the Interior, and the other Ofelia Osorio, a beautiful rarity in Cuba, a policewoman who is determined to keep her young daughters from joining the ranks of the jineteras.
But what is most interesting is Renko himself as he wanders through Havana, bundled up in his black cashmere coat in the sub-tropical heat, uncovering the clues that will uncover the truth of the Havana Yacht Club, and the message that Sergei Pribluda was trying to give him. Over all of it is the specter of He without a Name, idolized and cursed by the Cubans, and who always has an uncanny way of avoiding the attempts to have him disappear for good. In the meantime, Havana swelters and smoulders and waits...
I had heard some not too good things about this novel. As I kept finding more about Cuba and Havana in this story, I wondered what all of the naysaying was about. I had felt rather disappointed by the end of Red Square, but this time, I was caught up in the story of Havana. There was a lot about it that I had never known about, from the slang on the streets, the paranoia, the customs of santeria, the art of fishing, and a very exotic world just at America's doorstep as it were. It's all stirred up and delivered to the reader in a vibrant, heady mix that enough to wake up the coldest soul.
As before, Smith's writing is top-notch. I really enjoy how he handles encounters between Renko and people around him, and how he can manage to keep each person clear and distinct without sliding into clichés. Along with that, there is a wicked, sly wit that verges on the morbid, and I was chuckling over a few choice lines in the story.
And then there is the plot. The Arkady Renko stories tend to have thick, involved stories that require the reader to at least pay attention if not actively taking notes. The why of what is happening is just as important as the how, and Smith manages to keep the tension going with plenty of twists and turns.
Along with the narrative this trade paperback edition has an excerpt from Martin Cruz Smith and Murray Walden's interview in 1999, that helps to reveal some of the author's thoughts on the book, and why he came to write it.
Summing up, I was quite happy with Havana Bay and the additional layers that the author has added to his character of Arkady Renko, certainly one of the most interesting detectives in fiction today. This is a novel for anyone who wants some sharp police work, the look at a world that is both very near and very far, politics, and one helluva climax. Just watch out for Chango, ok?
Five stars, happily recommended.
Summary of Havana Bay: A Novel (Mortalis)
When the corpse of a Russian is hauled from the oily waters of Havana Bay, Arkady Renko comes to Cuba to identify the body. Looking for the killer, he discovers a city of faded loneliness, unexpected danger, and bewildering contradictions. His investigation introduces him to a beautiful Cuban policewoman; to the rituals of Santeria; to an American fugitive and a group of ruthless mercenaries. In this place where all things Russian are despised, where Hemingway fished and the KGB flourished, where the hint of music is always in the air, Arkady finds a trail of deceit that reaches halfway around the world?and a reason to relish his own life again.From the Paperback edition.
In this fourth book in Martin Cruz Smith's splendid series, an amiable Irish American gangster explains to Arkady Renko what he and the other 84 wanted Americans hiding out in Cuba do with themselves. "We try to stay alive. Useful. Tell me, Arkady, what are you doing here?" "The same," says Renko--and it's true. His life as a Russian cop has become so bleak and lonely that he takes any opportunity to shake things up, even spending his own savings to fly to Havana when an old colleague is found dead--floating inside an inner tube after night-fishing in Havana Bay. Renko sets out to make himself useful in this shabby, fascinating, haunted country whose inhabitants look on Russians with the cold disdain of survivors of a nasty divorce.
As he did so well in Gorky Park, Smith again makes Renko very much a classic Russian hero in temperament and tradition, but also the eternal outsider. He is at times close to the edge of despair--but his trip to Havana restores his natural curiosity and life force.
In this hot Havana, ripe with the fruity smell of sex, Renko keeps his Moscow overcoat on--until an equally idealistic and out-of-place young female cop gets him to loosen up. There's an unusually complex plot, even for the sly strand-spinner Smith. He raises baffling questions: Why would a group of military plotters order illegal lobsters in a fancy restaurant and then not eat them? And his descriptions of Cuban life are dead-on, reminding us on every page what a superb stylist he is. --Dick Adler
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