Havana

Written by Stephen Hunter
Review by John R. Vallely

The redoubtable policeman and World War II Marine Corps veteran Earl Swagger leaves his native Arkansas for the dangerous and unpredictable world of pre-Communist Cuba in this latest chronicle of Swagger’s career. Recruited to guard a politician, Swagger quickly is caught up in a world of CIA and Soviet intrigue. Charged by the CIA with killing a young insurgent named Fidel Castro, Swagger finds an unlikely compatriot in a Soviet agent as he struggles to maintain his rigid ethical standards in a violent and morally barren Cuba on the brink of revolution. A tough and gritty view of a world of doubledealing and betrayal.