Customer Reviews

Havana Gold: The Havana Quartet

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In 1989 Cuban police detective Mario Conde hates being a cop as he would have preferred to be a writer. However, no matter how he tries to romanticize his existence, he must eat and so cop he is. Drinking helps him when state sponsored corruption interferes with his investigation.

His current case makes him want to quit in order to turn into a 24/7 alcoholic. Someone murdered pretty Pre-University High School schoolteacher, Lissette Nunez Delgado. This particular inquiry hits home as Conde went to school here when he dreamed of becoming a Cuban Hemingway. As he interviews the headmaster, staff and pupils, Conde wonders what happened to his dreams and those of his countrymen.

The fourth Havana police procedural is a great tale (likes its colorful predecessors) that follows one year in the life of a dedicated cynical Cuban cop. The story line is fast-paced as Conde investigates the murder of a young popular teacher, but runs into bureaucracy from the school and his superiors. However, the key to this saga remains the disenchanted hero who struggles to do his job properly, which to him means solving the case, but to others connotes satisfying the state and the Party.

Harriet Klausner

I've read the entire series and I would have to say Havana Gold is the best of the group. The case that Lt. Conde is handed takes him back to his old high school to investigate the murder of a young, popular teacher who may not be exactly what she seemed in the classroom, while in his personal life he becomes entangled (literally) with a woman who's as mysterious as she is passionate. To complete the story, stir in some bad blood with another detective and the copious amount of rum that The Count uses as a self-prescribed anesthetic in order to cope with his job and life.

While Havana Gold is the fourth book released in the series, in Padura's chronology it's the second story. Each book is set in each season of the year 1989; Blue, winter; Gold, spring; Red, summer; Black, autumn. While each book stands on it's own and it's not necessary to read them in any particular order, Padura does make backward references, so you might want to take that into consideration.

Lastly, Padura is not an "easy read"; his prose can sometimes get ponderous, especially during Conde's introspective periods, which are frequent. But it also flows, such as in Havana Red where the author describes each one of a number of individuals at a party in way that makes you feel you're actually there scanning the room, all in one sentence that encompasses an entire page. Also beware of sudden changes of tense and person that'll leave you wondering, "Where did this come from?". Don't worry, it'll become obvious as you read on.

Hope this helps.

I recommend the entire Havana Quartet. This is the Mystery genre combined with that 'mysterious' thing we call Literature. In the not-too-distant future, when Havana is destroyed by MacDonalds, Starbucks, and Target, these books will no doubt recall a different era in Havana that one may look back to with nostalgia (not so different, perhaps, that one feels for New York City before it became something between Las Vegas and Disneyworld for the rich, famous, and wretched!). After reading the Quartet, I also recommend the other Mario Conde mystery entitled, "Adios, Hemingway." Another Mario Conde mystery set six, seven years later.

This is the fourth of the Mario Conde books. This novel documents an interesting time in Cuban history, the tail end of the Soviet Union when Cuba's socialist system was working. Conde, as many of the protaganists in Cuban art, struggles against the need to be a part of the collective, which means reining in his free spirit. Great characters and an interesting glimpse of how in a socialist society, greed, jealousy and ambition push people to go past society's limits.

Lots of interesting details about CUban life in the 1980's, an era some call the "Golden Age" of Cuban socialism.