Reviews for Havana Gold: The Havana Quartet

The average rating for Havana Gold: The Havana Quartet based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-10-04 00:00:00 Parag Goyal ****Check out the Netflix original series Four Seasons in Havana based on Leonardo Padura's books**** "That wind brought to the surface the black sands and detritus in his memory, brittle leaves of dead loves and bitter odours of guilt, with an intensity more perverse than forty days in the desert. Fuck the wind, he muttered, resolving not to wallow further in this melancholy, because he knew the antidote--a bottle of rum and a woman, the more whorish the better---was the perfect, instant cure for a depression that couldn't decide whether it was located in his soul or in his skin." Lieutenant Mario "The Count" Conde is one of the best detectives in Havana, but he doesn't want to be a detective. He wants to be a writer. He wants to write like Hemingway in the same way I want to be a Kennedy. I wanna be a Kennedy I wanna be a big heartbreaker Live fast and for real And you can follow it in the papers I wanna be a Kennedy I wanna shake hands with heroes And kiss the girls of centerfolds on the tongue And die young I can't think of Cuba without thinking about JFK, but I must confess I don't really want to be a Kennedy. They tend to DIE TOO YOUNG, and I have TOO MANY books to read. I've been listening to a lot of music recently, and Kill Hannah has somehow just bled into this review. The Count hasn't had a good romp in the hay for way too long. He drinks. He masturbates. Unfortunately, rum and a good rub only tide him over until he catches the scent of a beautiful woman. Then he is back to feeling unfulfilled, unloved, unneeded, and still desperately trying to find a few precious hours to.... "Write whatever. Just write." He catches a murder case. It has a bit of everything: "sex, violence, drugs, crime, alcohol, fraud, currency swindles, black-marketing, sexual favours and just deserts." A teacher has been strangled to death, a pretty little thing, barely older than the students she is teaching. It is alarming that a teacher has been murdered, but what is more shocking is that a stub of a joint is floating in the toilet. My life was empty, forever on a down Until you took me, showed me around My life is free now, my life is clear I love you sweet leaf, though you can't hear Come on now, try it out Living in a country that has been overrun by meth, crank, crack, and now due to all the rampant Oxycontin addictions (Thank you Big Pharma), we are back to having heroin issues. Purple Haze Finding a joint at a scene here is like finding a rank baby diaper, unpleasant because it has to be dealt with, but otherwise not of much interest. In Cuba, finding Marijuana at a crime scene is a big deal. Their reactions were similar to what you might see in an old 1950s cop show, but then their thinking, like their cars, has been suspended in that era. The plot is secondary to Conde's plight with his libido. He has met a woman, not just any woman, a saxophone player, a redhead with curves so wild that not even James Dean could have navigated them safely: "warm, wild tits, with ripe plum nipples that stir anxiously at the first flickering touch of his reptilian tongue, and, a baby again, he sucks, starting a journey to the origins of life and the world." It would be easy to peg Conde as an oversexed, aging man ensnared in one long mid-life crisis, but what sort of saves him for me is that he is such a romantic. He dreams of being with that one woman who will not only fulfill all of his sexual fantasies, but one who will also bring stability, grace, and purpose back to his life. He is such a lost and tortured literary soul that for those of us who struggle to be who we are supposed to be can certainly identify with his fear that he will never get the chance to take what he feels and release it into words. The other night I watched Anthony Bourdain's CNN show Parts Unknown which was set that week in Cuba. This was good timing because I've been thinking more and more about when I will make the trip myself... hopefully before things change too much. This is not nearly as exciting a prospect now as it would have been if I'd figured out how to go when it was frowned upon. I almost fell out of my chair when Bourdain had lunch with none other than Leonardo Padura. On the next commercial I ran downstairs to my library and looked to see if I still had some Padura's I hadn't read. Bitter Lemon Press, a few years ago, started publishing NOIR crime from around the world. Padura was one of their featured writers. This is the second book in the series, but because they published them out of order, I actually ended up reading it fourth. I would suggest starting with the first one, Havana Blue. Padura, in the interview with Bourdain, said he would never leave Cuba. He didn't have to tell me. It is splashed all over his books. He loves his country. He wants it to evolve into a better balanced combination of the old and the new. As American money flows into that country and real estate starts to skyrocket, it will be interesting if enough of the old can be saved to keep that city looking like the charming Havana that, due to political differences, has been kept cocooned in Cold War mothballs. If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit I also have a Facebook blogger page at:

Review # 2 was written on 2014-11-29 00:00:00 Jason Goodman [ Bettie's Books (hide spoiler)]