Havana Fever

1. Padura’s best novel. Assured in pace and style. A suspenseful mystery, a cruel family saga and an ode to literature and his beloved island, all rolled into one. 2. The titles in the Havana Quartet, Havana Red, Havana Black, Havana Blue and Havana Gold were widely praised in the US and the UK and are in their third reprints. They are Bitter Lemon’s best selling titles with sales of over 70,000. 3. An insiders view: Padura lives in Havana, and has written a scathing novel about Cuba today, flooded with dollars, a world of prostitutes, drug dealers and other hunters of the night. But this is also a novel about the Havana of Batista, the city of a hundred night clubs, Meyer Lansky, Marlon Brando and Josephine Baker. Not another strident novel by an embittered Florida exile but an insightful tale of loving disillusionment. 4. Padura’s masterful prose and eye for detail evoke the crumbling architecture, peeling paintwork and a pulsating, searing sensuality beneath the tropical sun of Havana.