I give Arellano credit for doing an incredible job of depicting Havana, Cuba and Little Havana in Miami, and offering believable voices, as well. But, at the same time, I'm afraid that that atmosphere was, for me, the best part of this book. The plot itself fell a bit flat for me, and the characters themselves came off as so nonchalant that there was almost a dampening effect on the plot, believable as they were. The pacing picked up a bit in the last part of the work, and I found myself more engaged, but the book as a whole just fell a bit flat for me. One of those, also, where I felt like more was happening To the characters, versus them being active, which probably heightened the passivity of the work as a whole.

I also have to say... the constant sprinkling in of Spanish got on my nerves. If it had come from particular characters/conversations and been translated, it wouldn't have bothered me, but it seemed to be sprinkled in almost randomly, which did more to draw attention that nearly all of the conversations taking place Would be taking place in Spanish--so why have some in Spanish and most in English if some are going to be in Spanish? And, while my Spanish is strong enough that I could understand a fair bit of those passages, I couldn't catch everything (maybe sometimes because I didn't care to put in the effort, I admit), and I found myself wondering about how readers without any Spanish would react.

So, yeah, this isn't something I could recommend, and I'm afraid I probably won't venture back to the author for more, much as I found the main character interesting at a characterization level. ( )

This is the story of a Cuban doctor sent to Miami to help thwart a bombing. I picked this up at the library because of the title. The cover, which is very off-putting and essentially had nothing to do with the book, almost made me put it back down. I kind of wish I had. The first half of the story, which takes place in Havana, I quite enjoyed. But once the doctor gets to Miami, the atmosphere is lost and so, unfortunately, is the plot. The ending was abrupt and felt very forced. If I were rating this book in parts, I'd give the first half 41/2 stars and the second half 2. ( )

I was interested in reading this book because I had found the t.v. series "Four Seasons in Havana" on Netflix engrossing. It is obvious that Havana Libre is an intriguing novel. The author, Robert Arellano, immerses the reader in the culture and politics of Cuba in 1997 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. To accomplish this, he enriches the pages with Spanish words, phrases and idioms that, I am sure, create an authentic atmosphere. However, being totally illiterate in Spanish, I found this frustrating beyond belief. I was afraid of missing a significant connotation, insight or explication, I wanted to know the precise meaning and inflection of the Spanish. Yes, the meaning could sometimes be determined from the context, or the author would restate it in English immediately. But the majority of time I was totally adrift. I decided to read on, guessing at the meaning as much as I could. One example was "casas particulares." As the writer had just spoken of apartment houses, I translated this phrase as "individual houses." Later in the afternoon, I was reading an article about Cuba in the WSJ weekend issue of Jan 13/14. There, serendipitously, was "casas particulares" translated as B and B's. So I knew I could not trust my guesses. Now I was back to constantly looking up the translation on my IPhone. Having to do this destroyed the rhythm and flow of the novel. Who was the audience Arellano intended this book for? Billinguals? Or, was he perhaps saying if one couldn't understand the Spanish, one could never begin to understand Cuba? ( )

Let's start with the cover, shall we? I can't recall having read a book that had absolutely no tangible relationship with its cover. The virtually naked girl in the cover pic led me to believe I was about to enter into a steamy, passionate novel of the underbelly of Havana. Nothing like it.

Manolo, the hero of the story, is a delightful character with whom I establish an instant rapport. Author Robert Arellano has a perceptive eye for the Havana, the Cuba, the Miami I hoped I was going to read about. A man of principle and integrity, if a little naive - as we discover later in the story - Manolo is someone with whom you can empathize throughout the novel. In his initial encounter with Colonel Perez, Arellano skilfully sets the scene, and even better, picks up the thread from this book's predecessor, Havana Lunar, without giving anything away. Very cleverly done.

As the chapters race by - and they will - Manolo finds himself in the toughest of predicaments. The author twists and turns the plot into so many different contortions you'll find the story breathless and the book, difficult to put down.

I loved some of Arellano's descriptions of contemporary Cuba. The resentment of tourists - "keeping the dying beast on life support"; the "collective hallucination" of leaving the island...all very evocative and a portrait of the crumbing, post-Soviet infrastructure.

I found the sequence of the chapters somewhat difficult to follow at first. But the story flies by with such intensity that you can set that little inconvenience aside and ingest the entire book in one sitting.

Disclaimer: I received an Early Review copy of this book in return for an impartial and honest review. ( )

Havana Libre opens with a tourist going through customs in Havana, a tourist soon revealed to be a terrorist smuggling bomb-making materials into the country, before taking up the story of the main character, Dr. Mano Rodriguez. Mano is a dedicated doctor, though frustrated by the privations and inefficiencies of Cuba’s regime. Much of the focus is on how much harder life has become for Cubans after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of Soviet support. The decades-long blockade impinging more than it did when the Communist bloc ignored it.

Mano has been invited to attend a medical conference in Tampa, though he knows he will never get approval. After all, his mother is dead and his father is an exile, a gusano (worm), who defected before he was born. When state security discovers there is a terrorist planning an attack on Havana, Mano is a perfect person to investigate…he has a reason for going to Florida and the person who they believe paid the bomber is a friend of his father. After seeing the aftermath of one hotel bombing, Mano agrees to go.

The mystery is about half n Havana and half in Miami. In Havana, we learn about his life, his family, and his interest is helping a young patient. We learn about his job and a lot about life in Cuba. The story is based on the real September 4, 1997, terrorist attacks in Havana by Cuban exiles and the Cuban Five who came to the US as defectors to find the terrorist networks.

There is much to admire in Robert Arellano’s Havana Libre. The mystery is sufficiently complex and when things seem too easy, there is a reason for that. The suspense and jeopardy are real, not contrived. The sense of place is excellent and Arellano uses all five senses to draw us into the story. Most of the characters are complex and interesting.

There is one major flaw, though it’s not in the story, setting, or characters. It is in the writing. Arellano incorporates a lot of Spanish. This should not be a problem, lots of writers interject foreign language into their books featuring foreign characters. However, there’s a kind of rhyme and reason to those additions. Generally speaking, people who are speaking in English reach to their first language when they swear, when they are agitated, and when the English language does not really capture the fuller meaning of the first language idiom.

Arellano inserts Spanish in all those cases, but also in weird and obtrusive ways such as using piernas. It’s not an idiomatic expression with more meaning than legs, it’s not a moment of agitation or an epithet. It’s just a Spanish word used instead of an English one. It’s not a word a second language speaker would struggle for either, it’s first-year vocabulary. I am fluent in Spanish, so I did not struggle with the frequent Spanish words, but even I found the frequent resorting to Spanish obtrusive and interruptive. When Arellano uses ganas instead of wanting, it makes sense. Ganas has so much more meaning and context, lust, ambition, desire…so that is smart. Piernas is just wrong. These are just two examples, but the story is riddled with Spanish used without the usual reasons of agitation, epithet, or idiomatic power.

I also struggle with how writers will toss in maricón, the homophobic epithet. It made sense in the context of this book, but was it necessary? In this book as in most of them where the writer uses this word, it seems like a permission slip to use the English epithet that would be impermissible without using the Spanish to leverage its use.

What I liked best was the obvious love Mano has for Cuba and its people. So often, books about Cuba are one-dimensional, but this one is far better than that. Yes, life is a struggle and the government is stultifying and oppressive, but it’s not paranoid. Other people really are out to get them.

Havana Libre was released today. I received an advance reading copy from the publisher through a LibraryThing drawing. It is a sequel to Havana Lunar both featuring Dr. Mano Rodriguez.

Havana Libre at Akashic Books
Robert Arellano on Facebook

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/12/05/9781617755835/ ( )