The Electric Mayhem: Cuban Dope

Column, Review | Brian | June 3, 2009 at 2:26 pm

havanalunar Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano

With a large tourism trade from Canada and the E.U. but the U.S. embargo in place a lot of Americans are in the dark about Cuba. One of the traps is reductive thinking, not getting past images of Castro, cigars and Che Guevara and seeing the real people of the country. And it’s exactly those people, the everyday people that Havana Lunar so generously gives us.

Havana Luna has a great linear plot that cuts right to the heart of Cuba with surgical precision and shows us Havana in a way not seen often enough. With The Party, a teenage jinetera, chulos, a hurricane and a curse hanging over his love life Mano Rodriguez’s long dark night cuts to the very soul of Cuba. Havana Lunar may not be on too many radar screens but it should be. It’s gripping, and tense with great characters and equally great writing.

With Havana Lunar, Havana Noir, Ruins and Havana Fever (just to name a few) there seems to be a rise in Cuban crime fiction (the bulk of it put out by Akashic), Which leads me to Fifty Grand by Adrian McKinty which is partially set in Cuba.

Fifty Grand Adrian McKinty

fiftygrand If Havana Lunar gives us the people of Cuba then in many ways Fifty Grand gives us the government. This isn’t to suggest that it’s a portrayal with a forgiving or sympathetic eye but it is a portrayal that gives us a greater understanding of it’s machinations.

The scope of the book is vast. A lot of mystery/crime fiction novels start with a dead body and the solving of that crime will cut through various social and economic strata. But in Fifty Grand the protagonist, very much alive, becomes the silver bullet cutting through the strata. Detective Mercado, a police officer in Havana, finds out that her father was killed in a hit and run accident in Colorado. She suspects foul play and arranges to leave the country secretly to investigate. To do so she must travel to Mexico, assume the alias of a Mexican citizen and illegally cross the border into the U.S. taking a job in the town where her father lived.

This path will provide the launch pad for observations on the Cuban and American governments; the politics of small isolated towns and the lives of the invisibles that are an integral part of the economy whether acknowledged explicitly or not.

Fifty Grand should go on to top best of lists and win awards. It’s an exiting thriller with a conscience, a point of view and an opinion all of which is expressed in beautifully written prose.

Dope Thief by Dennis Tafoya

dope-thief Too often in crime fiction what we see are attempts at being savage that wind up being nihilistic kill-em-all’s. For some the definition of noir is “ends in death or violence” but it can become too easy for an author to coast when whatever situations they come up with end in death. If every Gordian knot is cut by death then then what’s the point.

Tafoya gives us more then that in Dope Thief. He shows us the bad but instead of ending it there he extends the story far past that. By allowing us to see his character come out of the otherside harmed and changed he becomes something far more richer; a standout.

Redemption and hope are possibilities in Tafoyas world but they don’t comes easily, free or cheap. They are top shelf items that demand a premium. They can’t be stolen, only bought with a pound of flesh and little bit of your soul. As a part of this path Tafoya shows us the stregnth that comes in the family that we create.

And that’s the way it should be. Emotions and a depth of character aren’t something to be feared. The way to make Bad feel Worse is to contrast it with Good. Virtue isn’t virtue unless tested and change doesn’t stick unless earned.

Dope Thief is a knock out of a book that goes the extra distance to give us a memorable character that we want to do well not just win or survive.