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Havana Red: A Mario Conde Mystery
 
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Havana Red: A Mario Conde Mystery (Paperback)

by Leonardo Padura (Author), Peter Bush (Translator)
2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Havana Red: A Mario Conde Mystery + Havana Black: A Mario Conde Mystery (Mario Conde Mystery 2) + Havana Blue (Mario Conde Mystery 3)
Price For All Three: £23.32

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Product details

  • Paperback: 310 pages
  • Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press (1 April 2005)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1904738095
  • ISBN-13: 978-1904738091
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 261,847 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Padura's powerful writing creates an atmospheric picture of a turbulent city, illuminated by Conde's sardonic commentary." Sunday Telegraph Conde is thrown into the thick of a tangled web of mysticism, politics and subversive activity. The subterfuges adopted by people in everyday life, particularly in a climate of repression, are captured perfectly in Padura's seamy, heat-soaked pages and Conde's mask of "fears, wariness and lies" lends him mystique". Guardian "A scorching novel from a star of Cuban fiction. Conde's quest follows the basic rhythm of the whodunit, but Padura syncopates it with brilliant literary riffs on Cuban sex, society, religion, even food" Independent "Nothing is what it seems in this case, which has less to do with crime than with the struggle for identity in a corrupt society where outsiders are exiled in their own country. This prize-winning crime noir is the first of a quartet by Cuba's celebrated writer to be translated into English." Daily Mail


Product Description

On August 6 th 1989 , the day on which the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of the Transfiguration, the body of a strangled transvestite is discovered in the humid undergrowth of the Havana Woods. He is wearing a beautiful red evening dress and the red ribbon with which he was asphyxiated is still round his neck. To the consternation of Lieutenant Mario Conde, in charge of the investigation, the victim turns out to be Alexis Arayan, the son of a highly respected diplomat. His investigation begins with a visit to the home of the 'disgraced' dramatist, Alberto Marques, with whom the murdered youth was living. Marques, a man of letters and a former giant of the Cuban theatre, helps Conde solve the crime. In the baking heat of the Havana summer, Conde also unveils a dark, turbulent world of Cubans who live without dreaming of exile, grappling with food shortages and wounds from the Angolan war.
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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Havana Red: A Mario Conde Mystery
75% buy the item featured on this page:
Havana Red: A Mario Conde Mystery 2.3 out of 5 stars (3)
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Havana Gold
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Havana Gold 4.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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Havana Blue (Mario Conde Mystery 3)
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Havana Blue (Mario Conde Mystery 3) 3.0 out of 5 stars (2)
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Havana Black: A Mario Conde Mystery (Mario Conde Mystery 2)
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Havana Black: A Mario Conde Mystery (Mario Conde Mystery 2) 2.0 out of 5 stars (1)
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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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 (1)
4 star:    (0)
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
2.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Padura's "Metaphor for life in Cuba" as well as a beautifully written murder mystery!,, 23 Aug 2006
By Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
"Havana Red" is so much more than a murder mystery - although it is an excellent example of the genre. Cuban author Leonardo Padura paints a realistic portrait of his lady love, the city of Havana, in this wonderful novel. He doesn't skimp on thrills and chills either!

What makes "Havana Red" so fascinating is that this ode is not to the glamorous vacation oasis of casinos, clubs, and luxury hotels that once brought the city fame. This is a paean, of sorts, to present day La Habana, with its crumbling post revolution colonial buildings which require more than a paint job to restore them to former glory; the winding streets filled with a most unique charm, although in need of repair; traffic jams caused by Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles from a 1958 time warp, Soviet-made Volgas and Ladas alongside newer Japanese Hyundais and Nissans with their cacophony of honking horns that work, amazingly, even with a lack of spare parts; the glorious Malecón, that famous avenue which runs along the seawall, where one can view the ever present Castillo del Morro in the distance. This is the tropical capital of Fidel's Cuba, a lusty city full of character and color, a strange mix of Europe, America, and Africa, a stalwart lady, though faded, who resonates with the syncopated beat of the rumba. Talk of politics is ever present here, despite what outsiders think. Cubans are difficult to repress. Complaints about life and lack of liberty are also prevalent, as well as a strange cynical acceptance about the way things are. This is a city that would still inspire Hemingway and Graham Green...just as it does Leonardo Padura.

Into this extraordinary environment steps Lieutenant Mario Conde, a Havana police detective who has been taken off suspended duty, (temporarily), to investigate the lurid murder of a transvestite who turns out to be the son of a prominent Cuban government official. In the process of solving the case, Sr. Padura exposes various societal subcultures, including that of the much persecuted and marginalized homosexual community. Conde, an astute man with a well developed sense of irony, seeks assistance from talented Alberto Marqués, a retired writer and theatrical director who was blacklisted during his artistic prime. The "Marquess," ("as his coteries entitled him"), his interaction with the detective and his reminiscences of Paris in his youth, are marvelously portrayed. Really strong writing here, quite poetic at times.

Leonardo Padura won Spain's Dashiell Hammett Prize for "Havana Red." He is regarded in Cuba as a national treasure...and rightly so. In an interview Padura stated: "I would prefer it if the novel is not read solely as the story of a dead transvestite and an old homosexual who helps a policeman uncover the truth, but as a metaphor for life in Cuba, a life in which the masks worn by people hide not only sexual differences but religious and social ideologies, considered sometimes inappropriate by the official orthodoxy."
JANA
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Not my cup of tea, 6 Jan 2007
By Miran Ali "I don't like anonymous reviewers" (Dhaka, Bangladesh) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)      
I am certain that for readers with a more mature taste this is a fascinating book. Unfortunately if you're looking for a police procedural, not too complicated and entertaining, then this isn't for you.
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2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadable, 1 Oct 2007
By P. D. Copley (Letchworth, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Not good at all. I'm a big crime novel fan, but this is completely unreadable. I've no idea whether it's the translation or the original, but this is simply turgid. It reads like it's been written by a 15 year old who's swallowed a dictionary. Lots of adjectives, not enough nouns. James Ellroy this aint.

It's supposed to be atmospheric, but I struggle to read it with either (a) a straight face or (b) without my mind wandering and then having to re-read huge swathes of it. Avoid.
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