Havana World Series A Novel Hardcover - 2004

From the publisher

Martin Cruz Smith has called Jose Latour "a master of Cuban noir, a combination of fifties unsentimentality and the harsh realities of life in a Socialist paradise." Latour's first English-language novel, "Outcast, was published around the world and nominated for an Edgar Prize. Now the internationally acclaimed author brings to life the flavor and rhythm of old Havana in a dark, sultry novel of intrigue. It is the fall of 1958 and all of Cuba is riveted by the World Series--Mickey Mantle's New York Yankees are playing the Milwaukee Braves and bets are coming in fast and furious. Thanks to his friends in the country's troubled dictatorship, the infamous Meyer Lansky's gambling empire is raking in millions, much to the envy of rival mafia boss Joe Bonanno. With a team of Cuba's boldest and most ingenious criminals, Bonanno plans to hijack the small fortune Lansky stands to gain from a Yankees win. The heist goes off brilliantly until Bonanno's point man is double-crossed and shot dead. As Lansky's man in the police department investigates the murder, he suspects the involvement of career criminal Mariano Contreras--and to get Bonanno out of the Cuban racket once and for all, Lansky will stop at nothing to track Contreras down. Alive with vibrant detail and a fantastic cast of misfit characters, "Havana World Series is first-rate crime fiction and a brilliant portrait of a torn country hungry for revolution even as it lives gloriously, sometimes violently in the moment.