Translated from the Spanish by Peter Bush.
Published 15th January 2009 by Bitter Lemon Press.
From the cover of the book:
Havana, 2003, fourteen years since Mario Conde retired from the police force and much has changed in Cuba. He now makes a living trading in antique books bought from families selling off their libraries in order to survive.In the house of Alcides de Montes de Oca, a rich Cuban who fled after the fall of Batista, Conde discovers an extraordinary book collection and, buried therein, a newspaper article about Violeta del Rio, a beautiful bolero singer of the 1950’s, who disappeared mysteriously.
Conde’s intuition sets him off on an investigation that leads him into a darker Cuba, now flooded with dollars, populated by pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers and other hunters of the night.
But this novel also allows Padura to evoke the Havana of Batista, the city of a hundred night clubs where Marlon Brando and Josephine Baker listened to boleros, mambos and jazz. Probably Padura’s best book, Havana Fever is many things: a suspenseful crime novel, a cruel family saga and an ode to literature and his beloved, ravaged island.
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Havana, 2003: Ex detective Mario Conde left the police force fourteen years ago, and in the years that have followed his beloved Cuba has become a difficult place to ķeep body and soul together. Conde makes ends meet by scouting out antique books from the libraries of families who can no longer afford to keep them, selling them on to his rag tag collection of middle-men for collecters in Cuba and overseas.
When chance takes him to the door of a crumbling mansion in a once grand part of Havana, his intuition tells him that something to his advantage lies inside - and he is right. The library of Alcides de Montes de Oca, a rich Cuban who fled after the fall of Batista, is now in the care of the elderly children of the former housekeeper, and it is full of treasures that they are desperate to sell in order to survive.
Inside one of the precious books, Conde finds an old newspaper cutting about a stunning bolero singer of the 1950s called Violetta del Rio, who mysteriously disappeared from the public gaze just as her career was taking off. Something about the name is familiar to him, but no one seems to have heard of her, including the odd caretakers of the library. Conde begins asking questions about Violetta among his friends and colleagues, eventually tracking down a rare recording of her incredible voice, which stirs deep emotion in him. He is compelled to get to the bottom of the mystery, but can only do this by delving into the dark underbelly of Havana to search for anyone who knew the city in its heyday - and that is a dangerous business. What he discovers convinces him that Violetta's fate is connected to a deep secret in the family of Alcides de Montes de Oca - and that the answer lies in that incredible library.
Havana Fever is an evocative, slow-burn mystery novel that drags you back in time to the days when Havana was the place to see, and be seen - before the scorching night-club and casino scene came crashing down with the Cuban Revolution in 1959.
This is my first Mario Conde book, as I have not read any of the earlier ones covering his life as a police investigator, which I will admit did leave me feeling a bit at a loss when it came to some of the context of his lifestyle and quirky friends. However, the wonderful mystery about what happened to Violetta del Rio is self-contained, and it makes up in spades for the more impenetrable parts about his personal life.
The piece revolves around a newspaper cutting about a beautiful singer from the 1950s that Conde comes across inside a book from the library of Alcides de Montes de Oca, which has been hidden for generations behind the walls of a deteriorating mansion. This leads him on a path that immerses him in the former glory days of Havana, when the pulse of boleros, mambos and jazz filled its famous night spots, and Hollywood stars rubbed shoulders with the mobsters who were ambitious to exploit the scene for every dollar they could. Along the way, Conde uncovers some very uncomfortable things about the family of Alcides de Montes de Oca and the shady characters he kept company with, including the infamous Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky.
Padura builds lovely suspense into Conde's investigation, starkly contrasting the things he shows us about Havana's past with the hard lives that he and his fellow Cubans live in the present. There is real poignancy in the way Conde laments what Cuba has become, the disenchantment of a population that believed revolution would save them, and in his thoughts on the fate of the literary treasures he sells on. Conde is a complex and contradictory individual, not easy to get to grips with, but there is something about the way he reflects on all this that is intensely moving - and you cannot fail to admire his tenacity to get to the truth of the mystery that consumes him. I really enjoyed how the narrative of the story is broken up by very personal letters from a character who it takes time to identify too, as these add to your understanding of what lies behind the tragedy at the heart of the story - something it takes Conde a long time to piece together from his rummage into the past.
The intelligently crafted crime story held me spellbound, taking me on a very entertaining circular journey that led all the way back to the library that set Conde on his quest in the first place. Padura's writing is rich and full of depth, weaving layers of feeling into the story, that come across beautifully in the translation by Peter Bush. There is so much about the darker human emotions that drive people to act in less than honourable ways, but this is balanced with humour, warmth and friendship - and a first-class mystery!
Havana Fever is available to buy now in paperback, and ebook.
Thank you to Bitter Lemon Press for sending me a paperback copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.
About the author:
Havana Fever has been published in Cuba, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France.
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