I picked up The Cuban Affair: A Novel by Nelson DeMille because I was eagerly anticipating a cruise to its settings (Key West & Cuba).
Mac, a 35-year-old veteran has settled in Key West as a fishing boat captain. When he is approached by an anti-Castro group to charter his boat to Cuba for a dangerous mission under the guise of a fishing tournament, Mac accepts the job with the hopes of earning $3 Million for his trouble.
This book is set during the “Cuban Thaw” (2014 or 2015) when America was relaxing its restrictions related to Cuba. But between the time I picked up this book and actually read it, my own travel plans suddenly changed due to President Trump’s policy reversal that Americans can no longer travel to Cuba.
Despite my change in travel plans, I still read and enjoyed the book. It certainly kept my interest and attention though some of that may have been because of locational nostalgia (I have been to both Key West and Cuba before and many of the specific attractions mentioned including the Green Parrot, Hotel Nacional, all of Hemingway’s bars etc.).
Besides the fun locations, Mac’s “voice” was one of the most distinctive things about this book, to me. His dialogue is written as what he actually says outloud and then what he is adding in his head. He is a smarta$$! This was usually mildly amusing. His personality, in general, is tough and humorous, and strongly focused on sex and booze. Classic Mac here:
“A waiter came up to me with a tray of mojitos, which like the daiquiri had been invented in Cuba and probably should have stayed here. But to get some gas in the tank, I took one.”
But I disagree with Mac on this – I love mojitos!! I drank my first one on the roof of Ambos Mundos (also visited in this book) in 2001.
Actually, anyone going to Cuba, which is perfectly safe for the average American, may not want to read this book beforehand because it could make one a bit paranoid about its “police state.” But remember the average American traveler is not trying to recover $60 million of pre-Castro money from a cave, like Mac. So most of us should be fine when we hopefully plan our trips again after 2020.
If you like thrillers and especially those set in tropical locations you would probably enjoy this book. For additional good reading set in Cuba, check out these previous posts:
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