Havana Blue (Mario Conde Mystery 3) (Mario Conde Investigates)

Product Information

Leonardo Padura is the most internationally successful Cuban novelist of the revolutionary era and responsible for renovating the Cuban detective narrative in the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is now New Year’s Day, 1989, and the Lieutenant thought he would have a long weekend free from work to recover. In England, wearing a face covering is a personal choice, although they are recommended in crowded and enclosed places.

Their beautiful petal pattern is a true timeless classic - it’s the kind of design that works wonderfully well in both modern homes and heritage interiors alike. Using laser technology, the initials are subtly engraved on the left lens of the sunglasses and on the inner tips of the optical glasses. While pursuing the case in a decaying but adored Havana, Conde confronts his lost love for Tamara and the dreams and illusions of his generation.Havana’s bold, provocative approach to art, cuisine and entertainment—as well as the eclectic blend of African, French, Spanish and North American influences—including its range of architecture styles from the sixteenth century to the modern day, confer this epic city with a legendary status on par with the world’s greatest cities. In Carofiglio's The Past is a Foreign Country (which I read shortly before this) there was a character who "liked to swear.

Situated along the Straits of Florida, the capital of Cuba has been through several identities: Spanish colonial settlement, mobster rule in the 1930s, glamour of the 1950s, Cuban revolution and, most recently, a cultural renaissance. Voucher is redeemable one time within 60 days of registration on all non-reduced items with exception of Gucci (except sunglasses) and bags by the following brands: Celine, Prada and Saint Laurent. But Rafael Morin’s exemplary rise from a poor barrio and picture perfect life hide more than one suspicious episode worthy of investigation. The second novel of the series is in many ways a continuation of this one, he has another try at love, but, like all good Marlowe type detectives, will remain essentially a melancholy loner. Conde remembers Morin from their student days: "good-looking, brilliant, a reliable comrade who always got what he wanted," including Tamara, Morin's widow, and a girl Conde and his friends fantasized about back in high school.Publishers Weekly 'Drenched with that beguiling otherness so appealing to fans of mysteries of other cultures, it will also appeal to those who appreciate the sultry lyricism of James Lee Burke. things were especially tough in Cuba during the collapse of the subsidies from the Soviet Union so no doubt the author had to be circumspect. Parfum (Fragrance), Aqua (Water), Bht, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, Linalool, Citral, Citronellol, Geraniol.

Though mostly told in the third person, it's Mario's vacillation between attention to the case at hand and meditation on his disastrous personal life (and his attention to a small circle of old friends) that form the structure and the surface of the story. Published a decade ago but only recently translated into English these award-winning detective novels broke new ground in Cuba with their gritty and very real depictions of Havana life and their flawed protagonist, Lieutenant Mario Conde, revitalising a genre characterised previously by party line-toeing plots and detectives.

An old school acquaintance is missing, and Mario's reflections on his school years (and his infatuation with that missing friend's now-wife, Tamara) occupy a considerable portion of the novel, notable for both nostalgia and cutting satire of both the educational system of Communism and the still existing class structure of the school and the state. But as a window on Cuba, on a particular kind of Anglo-loving Cuban frame of mind (it's largely music and literature from the U. With Padura's Havana Blue, set in the present day but referring to the past, the world of his regular detective, Lieutenant Mario Conde, has similar levels of extra-corporeal experience - although the disembowelling count is lower. Whisky, cigars and black coffee with sugar aid the crime-solving, as does sex with the beautiful Tamara.