Havana Bay (Arkady Renko Novels, No 4)
by Martin Cruz Smith
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Book Reviews of Havana Bay (Arkady Renko Novels, No 4)
Book Review: From Russia With Love?
Summary: 4 Stars
Martin Cruz Smith brings his unusual Russian detective back for a fourth time in Havana Bay, set in Cuba during the special period of the late 90's. Fortunately for Renko, he is not aging as fast as the rest of us, since it has been a full two decades since he first appeared on the scene.
Renko has been fully through the cycle at least twice now, from star of the Moscow prosecutor's office to hopeless outcast. And for a Russian to be down on his luck, that is truly a state reminiscent of a day in the life of Ivan Denisovich. Renko attempts without success some things in this novel, that are truly out of character for the fighter and survivor that he has shown himself to be.
One almost gets the sense that Smith has grown weary of Renko, and wants to get rid of him in an inappropriate way (similar to Conan Doyle dumping Holmes over a cliff in Switzerland) so that he can get on with his life's work. Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for Smith, his non-Renko books haven't sold, so we will have Renko to kick around a bit longer.
Havana Bay starts out mildly enough. A former associate of Renko, one of the last of the Stalinist patriots and a spy, is found dead in Cuba, maybe murdered. Renko agrees to go to Cuba to identify and return home with the body.
Ultimately he does that, but it is not a linear progression. First he encounters anti-revolutionaries and revolutionaries, corrupt and violent police, beautiful policewoman working undercover in vice, religious cults, demolition experts turned mechanics, fishermen employing unorthodox techniques, and Americans on the lam trolling for investment opportunities from Capone's yacht and Hemingway's Cadillac.
This is the time of the special period. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Cuba finds herself lacking allies and sponsors. Russians become very sparse and more hated than Americans. Renko crosses paths with the best characters in the story, two of the 84 Americans living in exile on the island. One hijacked a plane to Cuba 20 years ago, and has not figured out what to do since, and the other is a Robert Vesco type financier on the run from the US law, planning real estate developments in Havana.
Renko should have known he was in trouble when his hosts start introducing him as the new Russian, since the last Russian turned up dead. But of course, he puts all the pieces together, despite resistance and worse from the authorities. He even witnesses the last supper, where the menu was lobster or nothing, and even those ordering the lobster would not eat or drink.
Book Review: "What was it about violent death that was better than dreams?"
Summary: 4 Stars
When the brooding and sometimes depressed Russian "hero," Arkady Renko, travels to Havana to investigate the gruesome death of a Russian colleague, his contact with the high energy Cubans does little to improve his view of life. Renko, who has been featured in four Cruz Smith novels, has been so anxious to escape from the corruption in Moscow, that he has paid his own way to Cuba for a break. Within a week, however, he is planning his suicide.
Forty years have elapsed since the Cuban Revolution raised and then dashed the hopes of the Cuban people, and corruption is rampant among the higher-ups in the Cuban police department and the government. The early affinity between the Cubans and the Russians has changed to outright enmity, and Renko finds his own life threatened by Cubans. Though as a Russian he is not supposed to investigate his friend Pribluda's death, he is unsatisfied with the inquest. Making the acquaintance of Ophelia Osorio, a police officer in the National Police, who believes him to be honest, he is sometimes able to gain important information.
Gradually, this complex story evolves into an investigation of much more than the death of one Russian. A sugar company, set up in Panama and involving high-ranking Cubans, some Chinese, and some Russians appears to be a shell in a get-rich-quick scheme. Several American radicals now living in Cuba are involved in this and other schemes, and as the action picks up, complicated by Santeria and Abakua religious practices and beliefs, Renko is brutally attacked, leaving him wondering if he will live long enough to get on the plane for Moscow that weekend.
Cruz Smith's ability to convey the atmosphere of Havana and to depict the mood of its inhabitants of all economic levels brings the story alive, and the contrasts between Renko's dour Russian character and that of the Cubans suggest that the alienation between the two countries may have involved more than the Russians' failure to support Cuba financially. The action, slow to start and sometimes graphically violent, ends in a dramatic grand finale, including several crosses and double-crosses and leading to the reader's new view of what was really going on behind the scenes. Though the action is not as tight as it is in Gorky Park and Polar Star, this novel further develops the character of Renko and hints at new, more complex Renko novels to come. n Mary Whipple
Book Review: Good book in many levels
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a great read for all the reasons already posted here: well written, etc. I could write a long review along those lines, however this book was all of that to me and then some.
I was born in La Habana ("Havana"), Cuba and haven't been there since I left it as a teenager many moons ago but I remember it vividly. I used to walk alongside Havana Bay (including Malecon etc) and I often wonder what is like now. This book magically tele-transported me there in a way no other book has taken me anywhere else (and I have a vivid imagination). Words can not describe the realistic, almost voyeuristic experience. What made it so real was the uncannily realistic backdrop (locales, landmarks etc) as well as the way Cruz captured the personality of its local players and their political and social mindset. The know-how and feelings about the regime were incredibly accurate and insightful without preaching or getting political. In essence Cruz recreated the way that people feel about the place and their lives in a matter-of-fact "this is my life" kind of way. I'd like to interview Cruz or otherwise know more about his research for the book. A lot of the things described take place daily but are only experienced by folks still living there. Visitors get a different experience altogether and are not allowed to see things as they are, behind the public scene.
This was my first Cruz / Renko novel, I've since read others and have also transported me to their locales (fishing factory ships, Siberia and the like) in what I imagine is a high degree of realism. Lacking the first hand experience in the locations for those books they didn't evoke the vivid realism that Havana Bay did. I wonder if other folks familiar with those locales and time periods feel the same as I did reading Havana Bay.
When I was reading the book, as I came near the end I slowed down my pace to a handful of pages a day so that I could totally enjoy the experience. I savored each and every page like a delicious Cuban meal.
I wonder if there are any Amazon readers with similar experiences about this particular book or other Cruz books. People of all walks of life have enjoyed this excellent book, but for me it was something really special that I will never forget.
Kudos Mr Cruz.
Book Review: Great characters & setting, weak plot
Summary: 4 Stars
The fourth Arkady Renko book (following Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square), takes the dour Russian police detective to a struggling and tattered Havana. On the heels of his lover's accidental death, he receives a telegram warning him that an old friend posted to the Russian embassy in Havana is in danger. After paying for his own ticket and flying halfway around the world, he arrives in time to watch his friend's decomposing body being pulled from the bay. The story that ensues is an extremely convoluted thriller, more enjoyable for its portrait of modern Cuba than for its weak plot.Grim Renko is the ultimate fish out of water in a Cuba where Russians are despised as back-stabbing former allies and betrayers of the revolution. One the book's most enjoyable aspects is watching Renko poke around with virtually no resources at his disposal. With no authority, no Spanish, and only the most tenuous of allies, he starts looking into his friend's death, galvanized by an unprovoked attempt on his own life. As he negotiates a city struggling to exist under the US embargo without Russian aid, he discovers a civil society, government bureaucracy, and economy constantly on the brink of failure. Eventually he is helped by a female police officer who, in a society where everyone must run some kind of illegal scam to bring in enough money to live on, has idealistic and unshakable ideas about justice. Of course, their pairing up is as cheezy as it is inevitable, but that's a minor flaw compared to the confusing plot the characters are run through.
As the book wears on, Renko starts stumbling into a rather massive and ridiculous conspiracy. It's a scheme totally disproportional to the fine nuances and detail that are so enjoyable elsewhere in the book, and its masterminds are shabby cardboard characters compared to the Cubans Smith so carefully constructs. So, read the book for its atmosphere of modern Cuba, populated by hustlers, sex workers, musicians, mechanics, Santeria priests, Abakua secret society members, veterans of wars in Angola and Ethiopia, and mouthy grandmothers who live in a realm where the socialist ideal is rapidly rusting, and boom-boom decadence of the West is capturing the hearts and minds.
Book Review: Arkady Renko transcends the genre
Summary: 5 Stars
Smith plunges his unsuspecting Russian inspector, Arkady Renko, into a hot and hostile Havana. Teeming with sinister santeros, bitter revolutionaries, ingenious grandmothers and underage prostitutes, Havana is a colorful mess of shortages, crumbling grandeur and intrigue.
Renko, answering an anonymous embassy summons, arrives to identify the body of his old friend and enemy, former KGB functionary Sergei Pribluda, who was undoubtedly in Cuba as a spy. But after two weeks floating on an innertube in Havana Bay (neumaticos, men without boats, use innertubes to fish), and a horrifying comedy of errors in recovering the body, the dead man is hardly recognizable as human. Despite dental evidence, Renko refuses to identify him as Pribluda.
This refusal leads to a mystifying chain of events involving several murders which are, officially, not to be investigated. But Renko, grieving over the death of his wife and heedless of his own fate, investigates. "Stepping onto the street in a foreign city in the middle of the night was diving into a dark pool without knowing how deep the water was."
Aided and deflected by the fiery, patriotic young detective Ofelia Osorio, who resents this Russian's impertinent interference, but takes her responsibilities seriously, Renko follows his meager clues. Renko's skills rely on keen curiosity, close observation of human nature, and dogged persistence, visiting and revisiting places and people; making his own luck.
The plot's circles and switchbacks pull Renko deeper into the underside of Cuban life and the unfrequented neighborhoods of defunct industries and former tourist attractions.
Smith's picture of the city beguiles with utter authenticity. From the US embargo and the Russians' withdrawal of aid comes a surreal vision of a place stopped in time, where 50-year-old technology runs on willpower and ingenuity. The writing is to be savored, each scene active but not labored, the people full of guile and contradiction.
Like "Gorky Park" and "Polar Star," another genre-transcending masterpiece.