Havana Best Friends [Paperback]

‘José Latour is a master of Cuban Noir’ Martin Cruz Smith

‘Don’t miss this one, it’s terrific!’ Lawrence Block

‘With a sharp prose style and good pace, Latour keeps the suspense up and delivers some real surprises’ Anthea Lawson, The Times

‘Dark, exciting’ Philip Oakes, Literary Review

A moody slice of Cuban noir from the acclaimed author of Outcast: ‘A masterful book … passionate, frightening and extremely violent’ Independent on Sunday

Years ago, a fleeing Batista supporter reportedly stashed an incredibly valuable collection of diamonds in a Havanan apartment. Now a pair of Americans (posing as Canadians) have come to Cuba to find the jewels on behalf of the man’s blind son, who promised them a share of the fortune if they can make it back to New York.

Arriving at the apartment, they have to negotiate its present occupants – a mismatched brother and sister: he a Cuban wide boy scraping a living out of selling girls, pornography and drugs to foreigners; she an upright, vulnerable, beautiful woman with a tragic past. (Their father, the hero of the Cuban revolution, is in gaol after shooting his wife’s lover.) Add to this is a hitman the Americans unwisely hired to get rid of one of the obstacles in their path, who now wants a piece of the action himself, and the pressure is on to find the diamonds and get out of Havana – before someone else gets their hands on them.

To the blind man in Brooklyn, Havana was a forty-year-old memory, a magical place of music and luxury. But unlike his 'batistiano' father, he had no desire to go back – until the old man's deathbed revelation of the treasure that lay hidden in their former home.

Incapable of reclaiming the diamond hoard himself, he enlists the aid of two unlikely collaborators: a ruthless Vietnam veteran and a struggling actress. But Cuba with its strange mix of idealism, cynicism, hope and resentment has a way of thwarting even the best-laid plans. Among the obstacles are a video-pornographer, a psychopath bent on grabbing a piece of the action, and a beautiful woman with a tragic past. And as the police follow the trail of corpses, the race is on to get out of Havana in one piece.

Praise for 'OUTCAST'

"A masterful book…passionate, frightening and extremely violent."
'Independent on Sunday'

"With a sharp prose style and good pace, Latour keeps the suspense up and delivers some real surprises."
'The Times'

José Latour was born in Havana, Cuba, where he won his first literary prize aged thirteen. Havana Best Friends is his eighth novel and his second written in English. He has travelled extensively in the United States, Eastern and Western Europe, Canada and Mexico, and is the vice president of the Latin American division of the International Association of Crime Writers. He has two sons and a daughter and lives with his wife and family in Havana.