A fellow in my winter Mystery and Suspense class (w/Con
Lehane) recommended Leonardo Padura, a Cuban author of detective novels. The
recommendation sounded as if they were something I'd like--atmospheric,
Chandler-esque stories set in an exotic locale--Habana--so I tried the first
one, Havana Blue, written in 1991,
and translated into English around 2008.
The Havana Quartet features police lieutenant Mario Conde,
known as "The Count." The stories are seasonal, and the first, Blue, is winter. The Count is a likable hero, "a cop who would rather be a writer, and
admits to feelings of 'solidarity with writers, crazy people, and drunkards'." Hmm, sounds like me.
The author does a
good job with the Habana setting, an excellent job with the characters--not
just Conde, but also his sidekick Manolo Palacios, their cigar-loving chief,
Conde's crippled pal Skinny, and his love interest, Tamara. He does a swell job with sex, describing
feelings of lust and passion without getting too clinical or salacious.
The translator, Peter Bush, also seems to have done a better than average job
with what must have been challenging prose in the original (despite translating
into British, rather than American English.)
The plot is murky. A
high-placed cadre disappears, apparently a difficult thing to do in Cuban
society. The reason eventually turns out
to be theft or embezzlement of international funds from his enterprise. A woman cop of Chinese ancestry finds the paper
trail proving this, but what exactly happened or how is about as clear as who
killed General Sternwood's chauffeur in The
Big Sleep.
The book was relatively irritating in an almost total lack
of dialog tags, a total lack of chapters, and a shifting of voices sometimes
following a blank line. Although the
point of view is generally third person Conde, some of the shifts put us in
interrogations in which he's not present--for example Manolo interrogates
Maciques, (who turns out to be a murderer), in a section of dialogue in quotes
with slashes and ellipses between speakers.
What reader needs crap writing like that?
So while the language was lovely, the characters charming,
and the setting atmospheric, would I buy another? Havana Gold, Red, or Black? (Spring, summer, or autumn.) Not likely.
Too much difficulty slogging through the thing, too little pleasure
in return.
