High summer in Cuba, 1953, & Havana gleams with possibility. Flush with booming casinos, sex, & drugs, Havana is a lucrative paradise for everyone from the Mafia & United Fruit to pimps, porn-makers, & anyone looking to grab a piece of the action
- including the Cuban government, which naturally honours the interests of its old ally, the United States of America. Of course, where there's paradise, trouble can't be far behind. Trouble, in this case, makes its entrance in the terrifically charismatic & silver-tongued form of a young revolutionary named Fidel Castro. The Caribbean is fast becoming a strategic Cold War hub, & Soviet intelligence has taken Castro under its wing. The CIA's response is to send the one man capable of eliminating Castro: the legendary gunfighter & ex-Marine hero Earl Swagger, who proved his lethal talent in Stephen Hunter's previous bestsellers Hot Springs & Pale Horse Coming. In Cuba, Earl finds himself up to his neck in treacherous ambiguity, where the old rules about honour & duty don't apply, & where Earl's target seems to have more guts & good luck than anyone else in Cuba. Blending real-world figures into a lightning-paced narrative, Stephen Hunter once again proves himself the master of literary adventure & suspense.