Havana: An Earl Swagger Novel (Hunter, Stephen) (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The field of male fantasy fiction receives a generous literary boost with the publication of Havana, Stephen Hunter's third novel (following Hot Springs and Pale Horse Coming) to feature straight-shooting ex-Marine and Arkansas state policeman Earl Swagger.

Reluctantly leaving his wife and hero-worshipping son at home, Swagger flies off to Cuba in 1953 to act as a bodyguard for "Boss" Harry Etheridge, a rainmaking Southern congressman who proposes investigating the influence of New York gangsters on the Guantanamo Naval Base. Almost as soon as his lungs fill with the humid Caribbean air, Swagger regrets accepting this assignment. Not only must he contend with posturing, backstabbing U.S. intelligence agents, but Boss Harry proves to be both incautiously lustful (forcing Earl to rescue him from a Havana brothel confrontation) and a big target for mobsters who don't want American politicians or anyone else upsetting the profitable criminal equilibrium of Batista-era Cuba. Swagger exacerbates the risk to his longevity by agreeing to help the U.S. government assassinate Cuba's revolutionary darling of the moment, Fidel Castro--a task that will pit this Arkansas lawman against a disenchanted Russian killer who's been charged with protecting and mentoring the 26-year-old agitator.

Given Swagger's well-established weaponry skills, it's hardly surprising that Havana is peppered with tightly choreographed shootouts, both on dusty country roads and in a Zanja Street porno theater full of moaning patrons. That's the male fantasy part; this novel's literary inclination shows in its portrayal of Havana as a richly decadent city full of shiny-fendered Cadillacs, jaded whores, and casinos flushing money onto Florida-bound boats. While Ernest Hemingway and mob boss Meyer Lansky make cameo appearances here, only Castro leaves much of an impression, whether he's bumbling through an attack on a military barracks or defending himself against a father who thinks him lazy, vain, and "womanly" ("I am between opportunities, but I swear to you, I am a man of destiny"). Although Swagger's climactic gunfight tests the limits of credibility, Havana remains an unusually substantive page-turner, expertly blending hostilities with humor and heart. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly

The term thriller is too pallid for this powerful, satisfying novel in the 1950s-set Earl Swagger series from bestseller Hunter (Time to Hunt; Hot Springs; Pale Horse Coming). At times the book reads as if it were chiseled out of granite, with Arkansas state cop Swagger hewn from the same impenetrable material. Swagger, ex-Marine Medal of Honor winner and legendary gunfighter, is called in by the American government to serve as bodyguard to Congressman Harry Etheridge in his investigation of New York-gangster criminal activity at the American naval base in Cuba. A reluctant Swagger signs on and soon finds himself touring Havana nightspots with a congressman more interested in participating in the city's culture of vice than in rooting out gangsters. Havana in the '50s is a cauldron of competing international government and criminal agencies. The mob, led by Meyer Lansky, vies with the CIA and American business interests bent on controlling the Batista regime and keeping an inexhaustible gusher of cash flowing. Onstage steps doltish, self-centered, failed baseball star Fidel Castro, who is determined to wrest power from the corrupt government and return it to the people. Swagger is drawn into a complicated plot to kill Castro and keep the Cuban money where it belongs-in American pockets. Treachery abounds, but the rocklike Swagger thwarts backstabbing countrymen, the mob and the Russians funding Castro alike. Swagger is beyond tough: "The heavy Colt leaps against his hand, its old powder flashing brightly in the night, and Earl blows a huge 250-grainer through the Indian's chest, evacuating out ounces of lung tissue and oxygenated blood." Hunter's muscular prose is leavened with authentic detail and wit and establishes once and for all that no one working today writes a better gunfight scene.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition edition (October 7, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743238087
• ISBN-13: 978-0743238083
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #635,973 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Captivating Adventure, May 6, 2004

By	Newt Gingrich (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews ("THE")

Stephen Hunter has a great knack for country attitudes, good shooting, complex stories and politics.

In "Havana" Hunter captures a moment in time when Castro is just emerging (the Yankees having failed to offer him a $500 signing bonus) and Batista is back in power with the help of the American mob.

Just as in "Hot Springs" where Hunter resurrected the great pre-Las Vegas center of gambling and prostitution (matched in that era only by Youngstown), here he reminds us that Havana in the early 1950s was a city of power seekers, tourist pleasures and American and Cuban mobster domination and corruption.

He weaves together a brilliant Soviet agent, Earl Swagger (hated by the Soviet system for his individuality and protagonist of almost half Hunter's novels), the CIA, the American mob, Fidel Castro and the Cuban secret police into a wonderfully complex and constantly intriguing story.

His characterizations of a young Castro are worth the entire book: "Speshnev looked hard at him and, try as he could, only saw a familiar type, thrown up by revolutions and wars the world over. An opportunist with a lazy streak, and also a violent one... No vision beyond the self, but a willingness to use the vernacular of the struggle for his own private careerism." (p. 101)

"He does carry on don't he? He reminds me of a movie star. They get famous too young and they never recover. They always think they're important." Earl Swagger on young Fidel (p 319)

Whether for fun or learning or both, this is a worthwhile novel.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Favorite of All the Swagger Books, November 4, 2003

By	Katie Osborne (Portland, Oregon and the sunny Caribbean) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Medal of Honor winner Earl Swagger is recruited to be the bodyguard of self-important Congressman, "Boss" Harry Etheridge, who is going to Cuba supposedly to check out vice and criminal activity at Guantanamo. But the real purpose of the trip is to con Earl into killing Fidel Castro, who has been making speeches calling for the overthrow of the Batista regime.

Meanwhile, the Russians have released prisoner Zek 4715, a veteran of military campaigns in Spain and Germany, known as Speshnev to protect the young firebrand.

Speshnev is a Soviet version of Swagger, even to the point of living by a code of honor. In fact, in my opinion, Speshnev kind of steals the show. He has the perfect opportunity to kill Swagger in a Cuban jail, but he protects him instead, can't kill an unarmed man, don't cha know.

Fans of the Swaggers, Earl and Bobby Lee, have come to expect a lot of violence in the service of justice and they won't be disappointed here, though HAVANA isn't quite as bloody as past Swagger stories. Also Hunter seems to flesh out his characters a little more in this novel, making them more human. I thought about this book for quite a bit after I finished and I have to say this is my favorite book in the series and I am eagerly waiting for the next one.

Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More literary than some of his other books, June 24, 2005

By	David W. Nicholas (Montrose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Havana: An Earl Swagger Novel (Earl Swagger Novels) (Mass Market Paperback)

Stephen Hunter has come a long way since he wrote (and I read) The Master Sniper, perhaps two decades ago. I have to say I wasn't very impressed with that book, and it was some years before I picked up another of Hunter's books, Point of Impact as it happened. I still think that's his best book, though Time to Hunt is also very good, and the rest of his books since then are an improvement over his earlier works.

Point of Impact's hero was a retired Marine sniper named Bob Lee Swagger. After writing several books with him in them, Hunter did several involving Bob Lee's father, Earl Swagger, who's a Medal of Honor recipient Marine who returned to the states and became an Arkansas state trooper. The elder Swagger has been the subject of three novels: Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana, the subject of this review. In all three, Hunter does a decent job of putting Earl Swagger into interesting situations, and then having him shoot his way out of them, but frankly I think Havana to be the best of the three. It spends more time dealing with his character, what makes him tick, and why he is built the way he is, mentally and psychologically.

Swagger is a killer, a fighter who enjoys the finality of a gunshot as a way to solve problems and fix disagreements he has with killers and criminals. In the current entry, he's convinced to trundle along to Cuba with the entourage of a local Congressman who's a wheel in the House of Representatives. Earl of course has to keep him out of trouble in a whorehouse, and when the mob figures out why the Congressman's in town (he's investigating whether mob influence is polluting the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo) Earl has to thwart an assassination attempt. Those fans of Point of Impact, however, will realize that Swagger's not on the island just to protect the Congressman: instead, powerful figures in the CIA want a certain young fiery revolutionary named Fidel Castro killed, and they figure Earl's just the guy for the job.

This scenario sets the stage for what's best about the book: a romp through 50s Cuba with Earl and company. There's an improbably erudite Soviet spy (who sounds much more British than Russian, to me), a clumsy Mafia hitman, several annoying CIA types, and a couple of single ladies for Earl to interact with. All of the plot involving those people plays out in the streets of Havana and Santiago, and in the jungles of rural Cuba, each recreated wonderfully by Hunter.

In case you couldn't tell, I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it to anyone interested in the era, or to those who want a good suspense novel.