Havana Bay: Summary and book reviews of Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith, plus links to an excerpt from Havana Bay and a biography of Martin Cruz Smith.
Havana Bay
by Martin Cruz Smith
Hardcover: May 1999,
329 pages.
Paperback: Apr 2001,
352 pages.
The body, at least what was left of it, was drifting in Havana Bay the morning Arkady arrived from Moscow. Only the day before, he had received an urgent message from the Russian embassy in Havana that his friend Pribluda was missing and asking that he come.
The Cubans insisted that this corpse floating in an inner tube was Pribluda, but Arkady wasn't so sure.
"You don't investigate assault, you don't investigate murder. Just what do you investigate?" Arkady asks Ofelia Osorio, a detective in the Policía Nacional de la Revolución. "Or is it simply open season on Russians in Havana?"
The comrades of the Cold War have parted bitterly, and the Russians who used to swarm through Havana's streets are now as rare as they are despised, much more so than Americans.
Havana is overrun with color, music, and suspicion. The Revolution's heroes have outlived idealism. The Communist world has shrunk to Cuba. Paradise has become a stop on sex tours. It is a city of empty stores and talking drums, Karl Marx and sharp machetes, where an American radical rides around in Hemingway's car to tout island investments and a Wall Street developer on the run from the FBI flies a pirate flag.
"A dead Russian, a live Russian," Ofelia says. "What's the difference?"
But the dead Russian is followed by the murders of a Cuban boxer and a prostitute. Although none of them is supposed to be investigated, Arkady cannot be stopped. He speaks no Spanish, knows nothing about Cuba, and, as a Russian, is a pariah. However, there is something about this faded, lovely, dangerous city--the rhythms of waves against the seawall, the insinuation of music always in the air, and, finally, Ofelia herself--that plunges Arkady back into life.
Chicago Tribune
What ultimately sets the Renko books apart is the careful writing, and, more important, the knowledge of the human heart that is carried through it, through them, first to last.
The New York Times Book Review - Carl Hiaasen
It's a richly intricate mystery, made more compelling by its setting.
The New York Times Book Review - Carl Hiaasen
It's a richly intricate mystery, made more compelling by its setting.
Chicago Tribune
What ultimately sets the Renko books apart is the careful writing, and, more important, the knowledge of the human heart that is carried through it, through them, first to last.
The Wall Street Journal - Joe Dizney
...Mr. Smith delivers another fine entry in an enjoyable series of spy novels and an excellent contender for the year's steamiest beach read.
The New York Times - Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
As readers of the previous books well know, Smith has been extremely adept at summoning up the seedy, melancholy Russian milieu in which Arkady operates. In Havana Bay, he does something similar for post-Soviet Cuba.... worthwhile reading, no matter how glutinous the plot.
The Wall Street Journal - Joe Dizney
...Mr. Smith delivers another fine entry in an enjoyable series of spy novels and an excellent contender for the year's steamiest beach read.
Newsweek
Arkady Renko is one of the memorable creations of Cold War fiction, as clever, guilt-ridden, and self-effacing as any George Smiley.
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by d.a.shultz Review of Martin Cruz Smith's works and Reviews Smith is incredibly underestimated. He never writes a commonplace sentence; his descriptions and settings and phrases as choreographed as Astaire and Rogers. Nothing mawkish, nothing dull, nothing out of place - each character original, as real as... Read More
Rated of 5
by ish
The book is very interesting. I like the plot because it's full of mystery and every incident is really scary. Also, I get to learn the language in Cuba.Sounds interesting. Anyway, it would be better if the book has a glossary at the back... Read More
Rated of 5
by Stephen Pendergast
I really liked this book. I thought the evocation of modern Cuba as seen by a Russian visitor very effective. Descriptions of the people, scenery, and occupations of the people made one feel right there. Arkady Renko is a very sypathetic... Read More
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Chicago Tribune
of 5
by d.a.shultz
of 5
by ish
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