Havana Bay [Paperback]

Martin Cruz SMITH (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Random House (1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0783885474
• ISBN-13: 978-0965075527
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (131 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,318,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martin Cruz-Smith's novels include Stalin's Ghost, Gorky Park, Rose, December 6, Polar Star and Stallion Gate. A two-time winner of the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award, he lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inferno Con Salsa, April 19, 2001

By 

Richard Wells (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Havana Bay (Arkady Renko Novels, No 4) (Mass Market Paperback)

Martin Cruz Smith is the Dante of post-Soviet Russia, and Arkady Renko, Mr. Cruz Smith's protagonist in the "Gorky Park" series is our guide to the nether regions. Renko is the perfect Russian: tortured, haunted, romantic, and in need of a square meal. The problem is, if you fed him he'd probably go into shock from the nourishment. In "Havana Bay" Renko doesn't seem to consume much more than strong cigarettes and the left-over pickles in a recently murdered (?) friend's refrigerator. And how a Russian in Cuba gets home-style pickles is a mystery unto itself.

Mr. Cruz Smith is a master of atmosphere and character. In his series he takes us from Moscow, to the Bering Sea, to Havana, and each locale is another vision of hell on earth. He has a detailists eye, and whether it's the slick of oil on water, the tactile pleasure of a cold can of beer, or the sound of cloven hooves on marble he awakens each scene with particulars. Havana is a city being slowly strangled by economics and regressing to the corruption and lust for the tourist dollar of the Batista era.

Mr. Cruz Smith's characters are neither black nor white, but the moral gray of humans under stress. Yes, the good guys are good, but they are also flawed, and that accounts for much of their attraction. Renko, Orfelia his Cuban detective inamorata, George Washington Walls an ex-pat US radical, and the sundry other characters in this well written, literate, mystery are all worth watching. Mr. Cruz Smith doesn't sketch, he paints.

Settle back, read, and you are there - have a good time in hell!

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Above average mystery thriller, May 12, 2000

By 

R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Havana Bay (Hardcover)

This is the latest installment in a series starring the Moscow investigator Arkady Renko. For those familiar with this series, this book is most similar to the second installment, Polar Star. Like all of Cruz Smith's books, this is a well written and capably plotted mystery. As with all the books in the series, the plot involves murder, political intrigue, and official corruption. Neither Havana Bay nor its two predecessors approach the quality of the original book in the series, Gorky Park. That book was a particularly stylish and imaginative variation of the classic American detective novel developed by Raymond Chandler in which the protagonist is the only decent individual, or at least the only individual interested in the truth, in a corrupt milieu. In Gorky Park, Renko's preoccupation with finding the truth makes him into a virtually heroic figure in Soviet Moscow. In the subsequent books, Renko appears more passive. This is particularly true in Havana Bay, where the suicidal Renko's grip on life has become tenuous and his interest in the truth seems more a matter of habit than passion. Cruz Smith does not apparently have the ability to make Renko's despair realistic enough to make the characterization compelling. The most interesting character is Renko's Cuban counterpart and love interest, a female detective caught in the contradictions of her idealism and the reality of post-Cold War Cuba. Still, this is a decent read and better than most books in this genre.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Luminous setting - murky plot, May 28, 2000

By 

Doug Vaughn - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Havana Bay (Hardcover)

Havana Bay, like many of Martin Cruz Smith's books, works becasue he recreates the milieu of his story so well - and because it is so interesting a setting. The plot itself is so dense that it recedes behind the scenery. Arkady Renko, Russian and self-conscious to the core, stands out like a sore thumb in Havana. His clothes, his attitude, his singular search for the truth about what happened to his late 'friend', all set him apart from those around him and propel him to the less than exciting conclusion that Cruz serves up for the reader. Far from the best of the Renko series, Havana Bay is still an interesting story and deserves to be read. Cruz can conjure up locale and scene better than any writter I know. If for no other reason than a vicarious trip to contemporary Havana, I would recommend this book.