After Havana: A Novel

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		After Havana: A Novel
		After Havana: A Novel

基本信息·出版社：St. Martin's Minotaur
·页码：336 页
·出版日期：2004年01月
·ISBN：0312307489
·条形码：9780312307486
·版本：1
·装帧：精装
·开本：20开 Pages Per Sheet
·外文书名：雪茄烟的背后

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Book Description
An epic and explosive novel of Cuba in 1958, After Havana is the story of the nightclubs, revolutionaries, and Security forces in the sour twilight of the Batista empire. Sloan-the protagonist of the richly acclaimed Ivory Coast-is a white American horn player with a bruised past and a wounded heart. Anita is the mixed-race beauty who will recapture his love and spark a manhunt through the streets of the city and into the heart of the rebel-held Sierre Maestra mountains. Carlos Delgado is the famed rebel Communist leader, having secretly returned to his homeland from exile in Mexico. And Cardoso is the haunted Security agent assigned to find and kill Delgado, thereby shifting the power back to the oppressive Batista government. Cardoso is author Charles Fleming's greatest creation yet, a man corrupted by circumstance and duty yet willing to sacrifice it all for redemption. With After Havana, Fleming has taken the next great leap in crime fiction; he hasn't simply created a well-told story, he's created an entire world. His Cuba is a time of violence and song, of musicians, soldiers, and gangsters all looking to score amidst the crumpling empire of the Caribbean.

From Publishers Weekly
Set in Cuba during the final months of the Batista regime, Fleming's densely populated second novel is packed with color, violence and history, but the action is sporadic and the narrative meanders. In 2002's The Ivory Coast, a white jazz musician named Deacon ran into some trouble in Las Vegas; now, three years later, he's going by the name of Peter Sloan, working at the Tropicana Hotel in Havana and mooning after his lost love, the beautiful Anita. Coincidentally, Anita is visiting Havana with her current paramour, real estate magnate Nick Calloway. Other characters from The Ivory Coast, including Sloan's benefactor, casino owner Mo Weiner, an associate of mobster Meyer Lansky, mingle with numerous new characters, among them conflicted Luis Cardoso, a Cuban security agent repelled by his government's cruelty; enigmatic Scarfioti, an American government informer; and many revolutionaries, including saintly Carlos "El Gato" Delgado, an associate of Castro, and Nilsa, a female freedom fighter. When Anita is kidnapped by the revolutionaries, Sloan, Calloway and Cardoso set out for the Sierra Maestra with the ransom. A climactic airport gunfight seals the fates of the entire cast. Double crosses and misunderstandings drive this many-layered novel, which is an ambitious near miss. Fleming's evocation of sultry Havana, insight into Cuban politics and society, and exhilarating action scenes are overwhelmed by all the characters who muse and reminisce too readily. As Delgado notes, a "certain amount of self-reflection was a fine thing.... Too much reflection made for poor revolutionaries." It makes for uneven novels, too.

From Booklist
Deacon, the Chet Baker-like trumpet player who starred in Fleming's debut novel, The Ivory Coast (2002), is back, hiding out in Havana after the Vegas fiasco that ended the earlier novel. His new name, Peter Sloan, may have given him a measure of anonymity, but it hasn't helped a bit with the burden of his past, especially the loss of his great love, Anita--who kick-starts the action here when she walks into the one gin joint in all the world where Sloan happens to be blowing his trumpet. From there, Fleming takes us on a furious tour of 1958 Havana--bars, gangsters, movie stars, and revolutionaries--leading up to a climax in the Sierra Maestre, in which apolitical Sloan must barter with one of Castro's lieutenants for Anita's life. Turn to Jose Latour's Havana World Series [BKL N 15 03] if you want a more-textured, less-superficial look at 1950s Cuba, but Fleming's version, a kind of TV-movie take on the topic, makes diverting beach reading for those who can't resist the allure of guayaberra shirts and cafe con leche.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Bill Ott

About Author
Charles Fleming is the author of the novel The Ivory Coast, as well as the nonfiction book High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess. He is also coauthor of The New York Times bestselling A Goomba's Guide to Life and Three Weeks in October. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

Book Dimension :
length: (cm)24.3 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)16.3
作者简介 Charles Fleming is the author of the novel The Ivory Coast, as well as the nonfiction book High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess. He is also coauthor of The New York Times bestselling A Goomba's Guide to Life and Three Weeks in October. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.

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