This is the first of the Havana quartet featuring Lieutenant Mario Conde, a tropical Marlowe. A body is found in a Havana park. A young transvestite dressed in a beautiful red evening dress, strangled. The victim had fled his family, finding refuge with Marques, an author living alone surrounded only by books, his house in ruins. In the baking heat of the Havana summer Conde investigates, moving through a Cuban reality where nothing is what it seems. Padura's masterful prose and eye for detail evoke the Havana that millions of tourists have come to know: crumbling architecture, peeling paintwork and a pulsating, searing sensuality beneath the tropical sun.
- ISBN10 1904738303
- ISBN13 9781904738305
- Publish Date 9 August 2007 (first published 1 April 2005)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Bitter Lemon Press
- Edition UK ed.
- Format Paperback
- Pages 256
- Language English