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The Cuban Affair: A Novel by [Nelson DeMille]

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Nelson DeMille

The Cuban Affair: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Nelson DeMille (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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Editors' pick Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

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Nelson DeMille’s #1 New York Times bestseller, “an action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller” (Publishers Weekly, starred review), featuring DeMille’s newest character—U.S. Army combat veteran Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, a charter boat captain setting sail on his most dangerous cruise yet.

Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—seems to have a pretty good life. At age thirty-five he’s living in Key West, owner of a forty-two-foot charter fishing boat, The Maine. Mac served five years in the Army as an infantry officer with two tours in Afghanistan. He returned with the Silver Star, two Purple Hearts, scars that don’t tan, and a boat with a big bank loan. Truth be told, Mac’s finances are more than a little shaky.

One day, Mac is sitting in the famous Green Parrot Bar in Key West, contemplating his life, and waiting for Carlos, a hotshot Miami lawyer heavily involved with anti-Castro groups. Carlos wants to hire Mac for a ten-day fishing tournament to Cuba at the standard rate, but Mac suspects there is more to this and turns it down. The price then goes up to two million dollars, and Mac agrees to hear the deal, and meet Carlos’ clients—a beautiful Cuban-American woman named Sara Ortega, and a mysterious older Cuban exile, Eduardo Valazquez.

Mac learns that there is sixty million American dollars hidden in Cuba by Sara’s grandfather when he fled Castro’s revolution. With the “Cuban Thaw” underway between Havana and Washington, Carlos, Eduardo, and Sara know it’s only a matter of time before someone finds the stash—by accident or on purpose. And Mac knows if he accepts this job, he’ll walk away rich…or not at all.

The Cuban Affair “is a timely stay-up-all-night, nail-biting page-turner featuring Nelson DeMille’s iconic tongue-in-cheek, articulate, rhythmic narrative. His affably irreverent protagonist, fantastic believable supporting characters, and tense, realistic Cuba-set scenes including some jaw-dropping revelations make this a must read” (Library Journal, starred review).

“Genuinely gripping” (Newsday), told with “incredible wit” (Tampa Bay Times), “The Cuban Affair feels authentic and real, and it provides knuckle-white tension mixed in with levity” (Associated Press).

Print length

444 pages
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Publication date

September 19, 2017
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Popular Highlights in this book

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“I only drink a little, but when I do, I become a different person, and that person drinks a lot.”
Highlighted by 516 Kindle readers
Well, as they say, you should never travel faster than your guardian angel can fly.
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Being captain of your own fate doesn’t mean you always make good decisions.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR THE CUBAN AFFAIR BY NELSON DEMILLE:

“[An] action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller… A line from the novel perfectly describes this page-turner: ‘Sex, money, and adventure. Does it get any better than that?’”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“DeMille's latest is a timely stay-up-all-night, nail-biting page-turner featuring his iconic tongue-in-cheek, articulate, rhythmic narrative. His affably irreverent protagonist, fantastic believable supporting characters, and tense, realistic Cuba-set scenes including some jaw-dropping revelations make this a must-read for his many fans.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“The thriller charts a satisfying course. A good day's work from an old pro.”
—Kirkus Reviews

"This is powerful, mythic stuff, like Confederate gold and Nazi treasure...As the true nature of the charter-boat owner’s job becomes clear and the betrayals begin, DeMille mounts a long, magnificent sequence with boat chases, helicopter rescues, and tracer fire. They’re all described in that visceral style the author has mastered."
—Booklist

"This book has that incredible wit that Nelson DeMille has, and nobody writes characters like Nelson does."
—Tampa Bay Times

“Nelson DeMille has outdone himself. I thought that Plum Island was one of my favorite thrillers of all time, but I was wrong—DeMille is always going up a gear and The Cuban Affair is going to be one of the top ten thrillers of the year.”
—Strand Magazine

About the Author

Nelson DeMille is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one novels, six of which were #1 New York Times bestsellers. His novels include The Deserter (written with Alex DeMille), The Cuban Affair, Word of Honor, Plum Island, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, and The General’s Daughter, which was made into a major motion picture, starring John Travolta and Madeleine Stowe. He has written short stories, book reviews, and articles for magazines and newspapers. Nelson DeMille is a combat-decorated US Army veteran, a member of Mensa, Poets & Writers, and the Authors Guild, and past president of the Mystery Writers of America. He is also a member of the International Thriller Writers, who honored him as 2015 ThrillerMaster of the Year. He lives on Long Island with his family.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Cuban Affair

CHAPTER 1

I was standing at the bar in the Green Parrot, waiting for a guy named Carlos from Miami who’d called my cell a few days ago and said he might have a job for me.

Carlos did not give me his last name, but he had ID’d himself as a Cuban American. I don’t know why I needed to know that, but I told him I was Scots-Irish-English American, in case he was wondering.

My name is Daniel Graham MacCormick—Mac for short—age thirty-five, and I’ve been described as tall, tan, and ruggedly handsome. This comes from the gay clientele in the Parrot, but I’ll take it. I live here on the island of Key West, and I am the owner and skipper of a 42-foot deep-sea fishing charter boat called The Maine, named for my home state—not for the American battleship that blew up in Havana Harbor, though some people think that.

I usually book my charters by phone, and most of my customers are repeats or referrals, or they checked out my website. The party just shows up fifteen minutes before sailing, and off we go for marlin, sailfish, tuna, sharks, or whatever. Or maybe the customer wants a sightseeing cruise. Now and then I get a fishing tournament or a romantic sunset cruise. Whatever the customer wants. As long as it’s legal.

But this guy, Carlos, wanted to meet first, coming all the way down from Miami, and he sounded a bit cryptic, making me think we weren’t talking about fishing.

The barmaid, Amber, inquired, “Ready for another?”

“Hold the lime.”

Amber popped another Corona and stuck a lime wedge in the neck. “Lime’s on me.”

Amber is pretty but getting a little hard behind the bar. Like nearly everyone here in what we call the Conch Republic, she’s from someplace else, and she has a story.

I, too, am from someplace else—Maine, as I said, specifically Portland, which is directly connected to Key West by U.S. Highway One, or by a cruise up the coast, but Portland is as far from here as Pluto is from the sun. FYI, I spent five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer and got blown up in Afghanistan. That’s the short story of how I wound up here. The long story is a long story, and no one in Key West wants to hear long stories.

It was about 5 P.M., give or take an hour. The citizens of the Conch Republic are not into clocks, which is why they’re here. We’re on sun time. Also, we have officially seceded from the United States, so we are all expats. I actually have a rainbow-hued Conch Republic passport, issued by the self-appointed Secretary General of the Republic, a guy named Larry who has a small office over on Angela Street. The passport was a gag gift from my first mate, Jack Colby, who like me is an Army vet. Jack got screwed up in ’Nam, and he’s still screwed up but in an old-guy sort of way, so my customers think he’s just grumpy, not crazy. His favorite T-shirt says: “Guns Don’t Kill People. I Kill People.” Maybe he is crazy.

I wasn’t sure of the time, but I was sure of the month—October. End of hurricane season, so business was picking up.

Amber, who was wearing a tank top, was sipping a black coffee, surveying the crowd. The Green Parrot’s regular clientele are eclectic and eccentric and mostly barefoot. The owner, Pat, is a bit crazy himself, and he tells the tourists that the parachute hanging on the ceiling is weighed down with termite turds.

Amber asked, “How’s business?”

“Summer was okay. September sucked. Picking up.”

“You were going to take me for a sail in September.”

“I did a lot of maintenance on the boat.”

“I thought you were going to sail to Maine.”

“I thought so, too.”

“If you ever go, let me know.”

“You’ll need a sweater.”

A customer called for another and Amber moved off.

I’ve never actually slept with Amber, but we did go skinny-dipping once off Fort Zachary Taylor. She has a butterfly tattoo on her butt.

The place was starting to fill up and I exchanged greetings with a few people. Freaks, geeks, loveable weirdos, and a few Hemingway look-alikes. He used to live here, and you can see his house for ten bucks. You can see mine for free. Bring a six-pack. Anyway, Key West’s official motto is “One Human Family.” Well, they haven’t met my family. And they haven’t been to Afghanistan to see the rest of the human family. Or, like Jack, to Vietnam. Or if they have, they’re here, like me and Jack, to float in a sea of alcohol-induced amnesia. I’ve been here four years. Five is enough to forget why you came here. After that, you’re not going home.

But, hey, it could be worse. This is paradise. Better than two tours in Allfuckedupistan. Better than freezing my ass off in Maine. And definitely better than 23 Wall Street, where I worked for a year after graduating from Bowdoin College. If I’d stayed with Hamlin Equities I’d now be dead from boredom.

Instead, I was captain of The Maine, and a former captain of infantry with a fifty percent combat disability and a quarter-million-dollar bank loan on my boat. The fifty percent disability is for pay purposes and I have no physical limitations except for housecleaning. The bank loan is a hundred percent pain in the ass.

But when I’m out there on the sea, especially at night, I am free. I am captain of my own fate.

Which was why I agreed to meet Carlos the Cuban, who was not interested in fishing. That much I understood from our short phone conversation. And I wouldn’t be the first sea captain who got involved with these people.

Well, I’d listen and see if I could make an intelligent decision—like I did when I left Wall Street and joined the Army for adventure. How’d that work out, Mac?

Being captain of your own fate doesn’t mean you always make good decisions.

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B071R25VXH
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster; Reissue edition (September 19, 2017)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 19, 2017
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4653 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 444 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #43,575 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #1,516 in Crime Thrillers (Kindle Store)
- #1,754 in American Literature (Kindle Store)
- #2,265 in Suspense (Kindle Store)

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7,251 ratings

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Nelson DeMille

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Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille, then moved with his parents to Long Island. He graduated from Elmont Memorial High School, where he played football and ran track.

DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army where he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69). He saw action in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

After his discharge, DeMille returned to Hofstra University where he received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History. He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and resides on Long Island.

DeMille's first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978, and is still in print as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of American Mensa, The Authors Guild, and is past president of the Mystery Writers of America. He is also a member of International Thriller Writers and was chosen as ThrillerMaster of the Year 2015. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College.

Nelson DeMille is the author of: By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, The Gate House, The Lion, The Panther, The Quest, Radiant Angel, The Cuban Affair and The Deserter. He also co-authored Mayday with Thomas Block and has contributed short stories to anthologies, and book reviews and articles to magazines and newspapers.

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4 star		24%
3 star		13%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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Suzanne Schlernitzauer

My first DeMille book, but it won't be my last

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 8, 2022

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Very well written and entertaining. Living in Miami and growing up during part of the period that the story is about pulled me even further into the intrigue. Love the tongue in cheek style of the author and the unspoken thoughts of the main character. Added a touch of humor to an otherwise very serious book. Read it, you won't be disappointed.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 19, 2022

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The Cuban Affair may require taking notes to keep up with the score card, as it is a tangled web of connections, history, motives, politics, skull - duggery and high stakes with a little lust and gun powder thrown in for fun. DeMille always delivers.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 21, 2022

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Interesting story, a quick read. You just want to keep on reading.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 4, 2022

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Good adventure. Some events unbelievable but fun. Happy endings are nice. Descriptions of Cuba and events interesting in todays world.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2022

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Not DeMille’s best work. It was just a story for most of the book, then getting close to the end came the action. Some of this action was a little crazy and hard to follow on the high sea. One minute the Cuban boat the Stenka is too fast and is going to be on them, and then they have time?? Then there is crazy maneuvering and then they get hit and have ten minutes??Really a little out there, but the finish was true to form. 4

Helpful

Another bestselling thriller from Nelson DeMille. Ho-hum.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 2, 2017

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"Revolutions usually replace one group of incompetent autocratic [pigs] with another, and the real losers are everyone else." So believes "Mac" McCormick, the cynical protagonist of Nelson DeMille's new bestselling thriller, The Cuban Affair. Up to a point, it seems to be a fair representation of the author's own perspective on Cuba, the setting of this cleverly conceived adventure story. Mac steadfastly professes to be indifferent to politics, but elsewhere he betrays his own, and the author's, comfortable acceptance of the one-sided views of the Cuban American activists who enlist him in a harebrained scheme to sabotage the thaw in relations between the two countries.

Doubtless, there are a great many things very wrong about the way the Castro brothers have run Cuba over the past half-century and more. The country is, in fact, a police state. In every neighborhood, there is a local "Committee for the Defense of the Revolution," or CDR, which reports suspicious views and activities to the police. Journalists whose reports depart from the government line are arrested and jailed. Dissent is quickly crushed. Cuban prisons currently hold dozens of political prisoners, according to Human Rights Watch, although far from the hundreds that were imprisoned in years past. (Frequently, dissidents are jailed but soon released, making it easier for the government to insist there are "no political prisoners.") Yet by far the worst outcome of the Cuban Revolution is the nearly ubiquitous poverty created by the inefficiency and incompetence of the country's state socialist system. Half the population survives on less than $1 a day.

It's important to recognize all those problems—but they are by no means the whole story. In Cuba, literacy is universal. Healthcare is free and available to all, provided by a state-run healthcare system that is widely recognized as excellent. (Cubans live as long as Americans at less than a tenth the cost, and infant mortality is lower than America's.) Cuba's free, universal educational system puts school systems in the rest of Latin America to shame: "pupils in Cuba’s lowest income schools outperformed most upper middle class students in the rest of the region." And there is very little serious crime. Yet none of these facts are acknowledged in The Cuban Affair. The picture presented of Cuba today is unrelievedly bleak.

Nelson DeMille's new novel is essentially a conventional adventure story—another bestselling thriller in a long line of such books from DeMille. Mac McCormick is a decorated former US Army captain who now operates a charter boat out of Key West who believes such things as "Honesty is the best policy, unless you could lie and get away with it" and "I spent most of my money on booze and broads and I wasted the rest of it." He is recruited by a group of Cuban Americans from Miami with a promise of a $3 million payoff. Their plan is to enter Cuba with a Yale University educational tour, desert the tour group, and make their way hundreds of miles from Havana to recover $60 million in cash hidden away there in 1959 when a banker fled to the US. As I've noted, it's a harebrained scheme. Nobody should be surprised when it all goes awry.

You'll find my reviews of many much better thrillers online at "48 excellent mystery and thriller series."

7 people found this helpful

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Michael Brudny

Good Adventure

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 15, 2022

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The action was at a high level throughout, as was the sense of humor in the main character (Mac), and his interactions with his first mate Jack, and his love interest Sara. I thought there was a little too much emphasis on the attitudes of the Cuban exile community, but still enjoyed this book and plan to read some more recent work of the author.

One person found this helpful

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scott l. hazan

excellent reading material

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 31, 2022

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Keeps your attention throughout. Very enjoyable reading. DeMille does his usual good job in weaving the plot and the characters together.

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A. W. Skinner

Not one of his better books.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 28, 2017

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I have been a fan of Nelson DeMille for many years, but this is a real clunker. The main character, Mac, is the usual DeMille hero - good-looking, physically damaged, with a laconic sense of humour. However, the other characters are all very one dimensional and I really did not care about any of them. The plot is also paper thin and simply does not make sense. It was very difficult to keep going to the end, and I could have given up at any point.
A low point in an otherwise entertaining and satisfying literary career.

13 people found this helpful

john

contrived and disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 9, 2018

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I was looking forward to reading this book and I am now so disappointed. It was so boring, and the dialogue between the two main characters seemed to run out and all they could relate to was; are we going to go ahead with this job or will we pack up and get out. This was discussed or related so many times to have become ridiculous, also their suspecting secret police around every corner, with no foundation for anyone to be suspicious of them for anything. The whole smuggling out of Cuba of two trunks was laughable and so contrived. The same could have been accomplished through the yacht Marina Hemmingway in Havana, there are so many yachts coming and going there everyday sailing around the coast, a couple of trunks on board one would have gone unnoticed. It was such a weak plot. If you want to read a book on the same subject but a thriller and fast moving get 'AN AULD BED IN HAVANA' you wont be disappointed in this story.

One person found this helpful

Mrs R.

The Cuban Affair - DeMille

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 4, 2018

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Too many gags ( not funny ), weak storyline, and the last quarter of the book seems like the author was at a loss about how to end the story so pulled a plot out of thin air. I am a fan of Mr DeMille and have read all his books and thoroughly enjoyed them and have always looked forward to the next offering. One wonders if this one was not a labour of love, but just put together to comply with contractual obligations.

6 people found this helpful

stmumford@hotmail.com

Disappointing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 2, 2021

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I am a huge Demille fan and think some of his previous work is outstanding, however this book is not.

The plot is contrived and unbelievable, the characters cliched and anything difficult seems to be either avoided or suddenly resolved.

It smacked of wanting to set a book in Cuba but not really having a decent storyline to do so. The main story involves the following stereotypes; a latina beauty, the army vet who seeks adventure and supported by a cast of slick lawyers, gnarly sea going tough guys and mysterious rich men.

I looked forward to this book for a long time and perhaps my expectations were too high, but this felt both rushed and more the output of a less experienced author.

Pensioner Power.

Oops!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 27, 2018

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Even the best can have a bad day. Just a disappointing read. As others have said, it is like a travelogue with a bit of action tapped on at the end as an afterthought. The hero is a shadow imitation of one of my favourite characters in fiction: John Corey and the rest of the cast are just forgettable. But, after the hours of pleasure that Mr DeMille has given me with his past books, one misfire is more than forgivable. If you are coming to Nelson DeMille for the first time, do NOT start here.

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