Havana Gold

I love Padura's detective stories with his fallible but honest detective. Interesting that these have been published in Cuba as they are very honest about shortages and the poliitical situation but Cuba is a country and Havana a city that I love and the books are very evocative of that city.

The essence and flavour of the poverty in everyday life in Havana are brought to life in this marvellous book.The storytelling is both credible and enthralling, and the characters are well rounded and believable.I could almost taste and smell the flavours of Josefina's cooking, and the pain of Conde's early morning hangovers are all too believable.Buy it!

Difficult to score this book. I read the first of Leonardo Paduras books, featuring his detective Mario Conde, in Spanish and I found it hard going. Padura recently won a big literary prize here in Spain and, with my dodgy Spanish, I wasn't really able to decide whether I liked his style or not. So I thought to read the second of the series (I don't understand why the English translations are not in the correct chronological order but this is actually the second, not the fourth, of the series) in English.The story was fine, I would reccomend the writer and this particular book to you but the translation is awful, truly awful. I'm amazed that the translator wanted his name in the credits. if I had been him I would have done my damndest to pretend I'd never been anywhere near the book.

A wonderful way to explore Cuba....from a writer who has travelled widely but never left his Cuban home.

As described