14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
TENSE, THRILLING, AND TERRIFIC!, January 4, 2003
New York Times best-selling author Carsten Stroud has established a reputation for crafting edgy, dramatic thrillers. His prose zings with reality; his plots throb with tension. While other suspense writers may find their work tied to a specific area, such as legal, detective, medical, etc., Stroud's work stands alone in its originality.
With two of this author's novels (Black Water Transit and Sniper's Moon) being developed at major Hollywood studios, and Deadly Force soon to be a film starring Johnny Depp, readers know that if Stroud writes it, it's tense and terrific.
Cuba Strait, the author's sixth novel, grabs readers from the first page with the introduction of Charles Green, an American pilot with a "loaded Glock strapped to his thigh and the fifty rounds of nine mill tucked in the breast pocket of his brown-leather bomber jacket." A former Navy man who was sent to Hawaii in 1969, he's now about to take off on a dangerous and mysterious flight. His plane, a Kodiak, is flawless; the weather is not. The cargo is unknown to him, as is the lone passenger who keeps an assault rifle pointed at Green's kidney.
Protagonist Rick Broca is a former New York State Police officer who quit the force after a glitch in the chain of command stopped him from saving lives during a school massacre. He is tending to his employer's boat, cruising off the Florida Keys before returning to his new job as a Hollywood technical consultant. When Rick sees the small Kodiak go down, he's all action.
There is a chilling underwater rescue attempt interrupted by An enormous female tiger shark dubbed Maybelline by Floridians. She is 500 pounds of "gouges and badly healed wound" with "an ugly puckered furrow carved into her snout." Maybelline has the unknown passenger for a starter, and wants Green who is trapped in the cockpit for her main course. However, Rick manages to save the pilot who claims to be a navy flier.
Rick's move to return the pilot to Miami is thwarted by a raging fire fight with another vessel - some no-holds-barred Cubans want Green and the cargo back, and they want both now. Obviously, Rick is on to the fact that Green is more than an ordinary charter pilot but no information is forthcoming.
The two men, all the worse for wear, do make their way to Miami.
The author's penchant for dark humor comes to the fore when Rick forgets that he has left the half-eaten remains of Green's passenger in the refrigerator of his employer's boat. So, when the boss goes out on a fishing expedition he is taken prisoner in Cuban territorial waters and charged with murder.
Aware that his error may well cost his boss his life Rick finds himself in the middle of a complex miasma of international intrigue. Suddenly, what seemed to be an innocent, humanitarian rescue has become an incident pushing Cuba and the United States to the precipice of war.
Rick doesn't know who to trust nor do readers as suspense escalates to a startling finale.
Carsten Stroud draws upon his experiences in the military, as a salvage diver in Mexico, and as an undercover operative infiltrating biker gangs to create street savvy, realistic characters. Powered by excitement and plot twists "Cuba Strait" drives to an explosive finish.
- Gail Cooke
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A page turner yes...but, May 26, 2003
Cuba Strait begins with a lot of promise but fizzles out. It seems to me that a great deal of effort was taken to set the scene but once the novel's characters are established they are almost on remote control. The action seems pre-determined the characters always making the right decision never finding any dead ends.
I found myself wondering many times how a certain character knew what had happened to another character when he/she wasn't present. One is left to assume that at some point character A briefs character B. Another disturbing thing is that none of the characters ever need sleep.
One really annoying thing about this book that is set in and around the waters of Cuba is that the Spanish dialogue (which the author uses often) is grammatically incorrect, misspellings, etc. Sometimes he writes words that are supposed to be in Spanish but look like French (an "L" apostrophe which is not used in Spanish.) He uses the word "ocha" instead of "ocho" referring to the number 8. etc.
The book got my attention early but then left me unsatisfied.I just felt like there was no climax. The resolution is 9 pages (out of 418) in which two government agents reveal everything the main character didn't know which is substantial (including a discrediting of one the important premises upon which much of the action is contingent). I wanted to like this book more but it needed a good editor and a re-write of the ending.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A tropical thriller that makes for an enjoyable read, October 2, 2003
I purchased this book through "Borders" teamed with Amazon and was not disappointed. I read it in about a week, it was hard to put down. The author, Mr. Stroud, does a great job of setting up the story and the following chain of events, with detailed descriptions of each tropical locale. Clearly, the author did his research and traveled to each of the different places he wrote about, the descriptions puts you right there in with the main character of the novel. I should know, because I grew up in Miami and the Keys, two main settings throughout the book. The "inner" knowledge of some government intelligence lingo was also interesting.
Where I think Mr. Stroud came up a bit short was 1) His inability to hire someone to check his Spanish grammar. A minor thing since maybe a hundred words of the book's dialog are in Spanish, but a little annoying for someone with a good sense of the language. 2) Excessive description of the sky at the beginning of each chapter. 3) The portrayal of all Hispanics throughout the book as violent, Hollywood stereotypes.
On his extensive vocabulary about the sea and the terms he uses, I'm split down the middle. He had me reaching for the dictionary a few times to check some of the nautical terms, but they definitely contributed to the mood of the story. In a way, I'm glad he through them in there, it brought me back to my childhood adventures at sea.
The bottom line is this- The book is a great read for fans of spy/espionage novels who would like to read a piece of fiction with some references to modern day problems.
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