The Havana Room: A Novel [Abridged, Audiobook, CD] [Audio CD]

Colin Harrison (Author), Henry Leyva (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

From the author of Afterburn, a major new thriller about a down-and-out lawyer who takes on a case that proves deadly.

The Havana Room is the tale of a man who falls from the heights of power and wealth in New York, and finds himself in a dangerous and potentially lethal state of affairs.

Bill Wyeth is a successful real estate attorney in his late thirties with a wife and son, who, by the merest chance, loses everything: family, job, status. Unmoored and alone, Wyeth drifts toward the city’s darker corners. Restoration seems unlikely, redemption impossible. Wyeth finds himself in an old-time Manhattan steakhouse and is intrigued by the manager, Allison Sparks—sexy, complicated, and independent in all ways. She also controls access to a private bar. This is the Havana Room, and what goes on in there, he’s told, is secret. Wyeth agrees to help Alison’s friend, Jay Rainey, in concluding a last-minute midnight real estate transaction. As soon as he sees the players and the paperwork, he knows something is wrong. Within hours, Wyeth finds himself tangled in Rainey's peculiar obsessions, which involve a Chilean businessman who feels he's been swindled, an old farmer frozen dead to a bulldozer, an outrageous black owner of a downtown hiphop club, and a fourteen-year-old English girl. Only Rainey knows the connections among these people, which are revealed when Wyeth is finally admitted to the Havana Room—where the survival of its inhabitants is most uncertain.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Harrison's status as the noir poet of New York crime fiction (Afterburn; Manhattan Nocturne) will surely be enhanced by his latest thriller-featuring, among other pleasures, the graphic description of several new and unusual ways to die. What goes on in the by-invitation-only Havana Room of a midtown steakhouse is certainly bizarre-but no odder than what happens in a Long Island potato field when a Chilean wine maker decides to expand his empire. Caught in the middle are two most unlikely heroes: Bill Wyeth, a real estate lawyer whose career and marriage are destroyed by a terrible accident involving a child, and Jay Rainey, a hulking, strangely sympathetic con artist. Linking these two is a touching and complicated woman, Allison Sparks, who manages the steakhouse but longs for more. "She seemed full of humor and fury and sexual need. She arranged people, fixed problems, came to decisions." Although Wyeth and Rainey drive the action, it's Sparks who sets the moral tone of the book. Meanwhile, the lush, alluring steakhouse and its public and private pleasures are the perfect metaphor for a postapocalyptic New York. "It did not matter if you polluted your lungs or liver or gut with the good stuff being served, because a man or a woman's life was itself just a short meal at the table, so to speak, and one had an obligation to live well and live now, to dine heartily by the logic of the flesh." Despite occasional digressions into arcane real estate law and Chinese cuisine, Harrison's storytelling hums and his prose shimmers all the way through this fascinating adventure.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Harrison won legions of fans with his previous novels Afterburn (2000) and Manhattan Nocturne (1997), and his new novel promises not to disappoint. The suspenseful plot, film noir atmosphere, and unique details like hallucinogenic sushi will keep readers actively engaged. What's more, in Bill Wyeth, Harrison has created a character with a lot to lose--his family, career, and sanity, for starters--and his plight provides an emotional backdrop to the chases and killings. A few naysayers found that the thrill wore off, that Harrison displayed a tendency to overwrite, and that he sometimes stretched the limits of plausibility. For the most part, however, critics were drawn into both the internal and external drama of Wyeth's life, and cheered him on his search for redemption.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio; Abridged edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155927994X
• ISBN-13: 978-1559279949
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,194,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but not totally successful novel, March 2, 2004

By 

R. H OAKLEY "roboakley" (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)

If you look at the reviews for this book, you will conclude that it must either be a masterpiece or a waste of paper. It is neither. Harrison has a lot of interesting ideas but does not, in my opinion, totally pull them off. The book is narrated by Bill Wyeth, whose rapid descent from a successful New York real estate lawyer to near bum is covered if the first chapter. Through a terrible mistake, for which he is not responsible, a child dies, and his powerful father uses his power to ruin Wyeth. In quick succession, he loses his job, his wife, and access to his son.

When he has reached the bottom, he wanders into a steak restaurant that seems to be an island of sanity in a world that has turned on him. He develops a crush on the woman who runs the restaurant, Allison Sparks. There is a mysterious room which is invitation-only that fascinates him but to which he cannot gain access. Then one night he is asked by Allison to help her boyfriend, Jay Rainey, close a real estate deal. He does, reluctantly, and as a result, (1) finds himself doing things that, while not clearly criminal, could be and (2) starts being threatened by a series of thugs for reasons he cannot understand. All of this leads him to uncover Jay Rainey's secrets as a way of saving himself.

The obvious influence on this book is the Great Gatsby. Rainey shares a first name (Jay) with Gatsby, an obsession with trying to reclaim the past, and a possibly criminal background. Indeed, Wyeth comes on a list of activities made by Rainey of what to do each day that is almost identical to a list made by Gatsby, although for different purposes. Of course, nothing is what it seems a first or even second glance.

By the end of the book, Harrison is tying up numerous plots, including Rainey's past and future, and the mysterious Havana Room. I found the resolution somewhat forced. Additionally, I often figured out what was happening well before the narrator, which is annoying. The secret of what goes on in the Havana Room was a let-down. And the ending was a little too hopeful for what had gone before.

Nevertheless, this book is not a waste. Harrison is trying to write more than a run of the mill thriller. The use of the Gatsby theme is effective, and the ultimate secrets about Rainey's past are moving. Violence plays a part in the book, but it seemed realistic in that it was not carefully thought out but almost accidental. While the book is not perfectly plotted, it offers the reader interesting characters who, like Gatsby, are pulled back into the past.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great writing, compelling read, April 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)

Is there a better novelist crafting well-written, utterly engaging stories about Manhattan than Colin Harrison? I doubt it. He locks you in from page one, dazzles you with superb writing, and fills the pages with daring plot twists. This is a story about a lawyer, who after an accidental mishap, loses his wife, child, career and dignity until he happens to stumble into a midtown steakhouse with a mysterious private room called...you guessed it. This is really a book about losing a child (either through death or divorce), but we're clearly not in Oprah-ville. Some things strain credibility (like how does an unemployed lawyer down on his luck afford lunch and dinner EVERY DAY in a steakhouse?) and the plot gets a little too tricky at times, but it's easy to ignore these faults because of Harrison's huge writing talent which breathes life into his characters and Manhattan. I, for one, couldn't put it down. I wish he would write faster...I can't wait for his next book.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great Start, April 9, 2004

By 

J. Harrison "stone" (Gainesville, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)

For the first third of this book I thought I had found one of those magical times when I read slowly to savor the writing and the mood. The characters were mysterious and I could not wait see the unraveling. Unfortunately, things turned very ordinary, even pitiful. Stock character and stereotypes began to act in predictable ways. Ultimately so disappointing.