Customer Reviews

Cuba Strait: A Novel

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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

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.

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.

Too many unbelievable moments disengaged me from this book. The three main characters--Rick, Charlie and Zeffi--are caricatures, damaged hero types. The two men in particular are so over-the-top macho and wisecracking that I almost hurled the book through the window. Zeffi is fun but her gun moll persona got old after a while.

Another quibble was in the overwrought language used to describe the frequent violent scenes. While I'm not averse to gory details, the constant in-depth description of every wound in the book lent itself to some serious skipping of pages.

All that said, the book moves along pretty well. The premise is a bit prepostrous, but this ranks as a middle of the pack suspense novel.

Carsten Stroud's thriller begins with enough mystery, jeopardy, and excitement to hook the reader until the end. A man named Charles Green readies himself to pilot a small aircraft from Cuba by destroying all his belongings except for a picture of him with his family. In the midst of a storm, the plane, piloted by Green and carrying a close-mouthed passenger, goes down off the Florida Keys where Rick Broca, former State Trooper and now Hollywood consultant, spots them. In the absence of nearby Coast Guard boats, he is sent to rescue any survivors. What follows is a series of by-the-throat scenes as Broca finds himself enmeshed with a violent scheme that involves Cuban nationals, the FBI and NSA, a renegade American - with two of his friends used as pawns from a Cuban jail, all with repercussions pointing toward a war between the United States and Cuba

Much of this novel is preposterous, but you won't care because the fantasy of it is so tightly wound, scene after scene. Stroud's writing is not particularly good, but his descriptions of graphic violence will make you feel every knife twist. Rick Broca is a good no-nonsense, resourceful protagonist - the kind of man who can think on his feet even when his life is in danger. Girlfriend Zeffi is two-dimensional but somewhat fun; there's a bar scene near the end when she really comes alive. The real flaw of this thriller is the denouement, which involves several pages of explanations that make it seem as though the author planned a more complicated novel but ran out of time to develop it. Getting to those pages, however, is suspenseful fun.

This is my third Carston Stroud novel and they seem to just get better. This is a long book but very quickly read. There is action on the sea, air and land. It is truly one of those books that you can't stop reading. The story moves along quickly and there is plent of action, violence, adventure and some really nasty bad guys. The ending is something of a surprise, even though you expect the unexpected in this type of story. The main characters are quite interesting, and I would like to see a sequel involving Rick and Zeffi. My only complaint, and it is a small one, is that some of the attempts at humor in the book fell flat and seemed incongruous. Otherwise, a fantastic read. I put Mr. Stroud in the top three of thriller writers today.

A young, New York State patrolman (retired early from a gunshot wound) is appreciating a slower pace of life fishing off the Florida Keys, when a tropical storm blackens the sky. He is unaware of the danger he's about to reel in from the turbulent seas.

The character, Rick Broca, is lured into a deadly scheme that reaches international proportions - all from risking his life to save another man whose identity is shrouded in complexities and unknowns. Broca becomes entwined in a net of unsavory intrigue with no apparent escape.

Stroud has an uncanny ability as a storyteller to combine personalities and action into a blend that keeps you turning the pages, wondering what will happen next. "Cuba Strait" is a complex story, which comes together in a convincing way that perfectly fits the age of mass terror.

This is the first novel I have read by Stroud, and it definitely will not be the last. If you enjoy action, adventure, and intense stories, Stroud is a writer worth remembering!

If Carsten Stroud had hopes of catapulting his books into the ranks of the big guys, CUBA STRAIT will undoubtedly be the novel to take him there. With coast-to-coast action, a wisecracking ex-cop, a beautiful French girlfriend and even a dog-slapping kitty, all the ingredients are here. Add to that mixture a covert ops pilot, several FBI types and some Hollywood bigwigs --- and the plot thickens. Then toss in a story that twists and turns more than the Gulf Stream and the result is a riveting tale more engrossing than even his BLACK WATER TRANSIT and SNIPER'S MOON, currently in the process of development into blockbuster movies. It definitely has something for everybody: murder, mystery, politics, romance, chase scenes galore, technical gadgets and lots and lots of thrills.

The opening pages of CUBA STRAIT launch us into the action immediately, with charter pilot Charlie Green taking off in the advancing dusk of an impending storm, carrying a load he knows to be dangerously heavy.

The next chapter cuts to Rick Broca, retired from the New York State Police at the tender age of 33 due to a misunderstanding with superiors about how to handle a school shooting. He is facing the same storm as Green, along with his shipboard cat Cisco --- only he's battling the rollers, not the roiling clouds. Inevitably, the two paths cross. The plane goes down and Broca heroically comes to the rescue, setting in motion a series of events that lead to an international crisis between the United States and Cuba. Some very serious and unsavory thugs from Havana dog Broca while he attempts to figure out what they want and why. He suspects Green is hiding something from him, probably something deadly important. When agents of several of the more secretive governmental departments politely but forcefully request he come in for an interview, Broca becomes convinced that there's more going on than he initially guessed. A natural skeptic, he has a harder time than usual knowing who to trust --- and so will you.

If Stroud has done his research well and knows of what he speaks, our neighbor to the south doesn't fare well in the race to the top of the list of friendly nations. Cuba sharpens into a bona fide threat and the criminals who run out of there come across as soberly bad guys.

The author's colorful background undeniably adds beef to his writing. His varied past --- salvage diving in Mexico, time in the military, undercover duty, journalist --- gives his characters a realism that's hard to make up, helping them sound knowledgeable and expert. At the same time, the dialogue is so witty, with snappy comebacks even in the face of certain death, that it provides welcome respite from the heart-racing chase scenes and relentless tension. Be sure to have a block of time set aside for this high-anxiety thriller because, once begun, putting it down is quite frankly impossible.

NOTE: Strong language, blood and guts, minimal sex.

--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers

...it's an interesting read. Good story line, good dialog, vivid place descriptions, and some humorous moments.

However, there are several technical problems, such as the behavior of tropical storms, the direction of flow in the Gulf Stream, plot inconsistencies, etc.

If you're not too analytical, you'll enjoy it. I'll probably read at least one more of his books.

The good news is that the author has real storytelling talent, and can turn a really good phrase. The bad news--if you're a decent human being--is that every other page will likely make you want to kick him. He would probably get thrown out of the Tea Party for being too conservative. Racism, white supremacy, and blind American chauvinism come through very frequently, and you can tell it's from the author himself, not from his characters. If I had spent money on this book (I got it free), I would have felt guilty about supporting the author financially. He could also use a good fact-checker, as his knowledge of just about everything is quite faulty. This isn't a sophisticated guy, or a nice guy, but if you're willing to overlook all that, it's a fun, fast-moving story.