Rating: 
Summary: Strong entry in Earl Swagger series
Review: In an afterword, Hunter explains that he got the book from his well known editor, Michael Korda. Korda gave it to him in four words: "Earl Swagger in Havana." This allows Hunter a rich set of characters to draw on, such as Castro and Meyer Lansky. It also allows him to throw Swagger into a multi-sided situation -- the CIA and Cuban government, the gangsters with ties to both the CIA and the Government but pursuing their own interests as well, and the Soviets, with their interests in creating unrest. Castro plays an important role as a bumbling revolutionary with a gift for speechmaking, some courage and not much else (I doubt that this is an accurate picture of Castro). Swagger is brought to Cuba on pretext, as a body-guard for a ridiculous Congressman and his aide -- the real reason is that the CIA wants to have Swagger kill Castro.What follows is typical Hunter, gun battles with the weapons described in detail; Hunter's odd ability to create tension by describing events out of chronolocial order (you'll read a vague description of what happened, followed by a flashback that shows what actually happened); and Earl Swagger's ability to one-up any man around him. John Wayne would have loved to have played this character. There's more humor in this book than usual; an argument between between the terrified Congressman and his even more terrified aide when under fire had me laughing out loud. Castro is also a subject for many jokes, although whether this is deserved or not I can't say. Hemingway makes a brief, but disastorous cameo that unfortunately is in keeping with his behavior, particularly at that time. I find Earl Swagger a more interesting character than his son, Bob Lee, who was the subject of Hunter's first three novels in the Swagger series. Bob Lee was laconic to the point of making Clint Eastwood in his early westerns sound like a chatterbox. Earl is not much more talkative, but our knowledge of his hard life (see Hot Springs) and his desperate hope that his son will have an easier life (of course he won't) gives him more depth than one would expect for a thriller hero. There is also the knowledge that, unless Hunter engages in a major rewrite of history, that he does not have long to live. Hunter killed off Earl Swagger in 1955 in his first appearance, Black Light. For those who have read other Swagger books, you will find Hunter reusing to good effect a character from prior books. Frenchy Short is back, and is as devious and crooked as ever. He hero-worships Earl but doesn't hesitate to try to have him killed to serve his own purposes. The Congressman who Earl acts as a bodyguard for is Harry Etheridge. At a later point, Etheridge tells Earl that if Earl signs on the CIA their boys can be friends (the chronology on this won't work but Hunter has admitted that to revising the chronology between books). In fact, Etheridge's son will be the cause of Earl's death and will be involved in trying to kill Bob Lee. Finally, a Soviet spy named Pashin has the same last name as a former spy about to become President of Russia in A Time to Kill, but different first name. However, the character in Havana claims to have many relatives in Soviet intelligence, so maybe they are related. I'm no gun expert, but did spot a couple of small mistakes Hunter makes. Frenchy Short inexplicably switches guns within a few pages -- Hunter is always very specific about the guns his characters carries. Also, a Russian involved in the Spanish Civil War contempously compares Sherman tanks to the German tanks he saw in Spain. Hunter is thinking of the Panther and Tiger II tanks used by Germany at the end of World War II; those used in Spain may have only been equipped with machine guns. While I gave this book four stars (it would have been 3 and half if Amazon allowed this), I have to wonder what Hunter will do next. A fourth Earl Swagger book will be hard to write; Hunter's done about as much with this character as he can. It may be that he goes to a stand-alone book like Dirty White Boys orginally was (it was later written into the Swagger books in a way that explains the great Lamar Pye's gunfighting skills. Too bad about Lamar; he's my favorite Hunter character of all time). In any event, I look forward to whatever Hunter produces next. He's shown a sure sense when to move on, as he did when he wrote the first real Earl Swagger book Hot Springs, one of his best.
Rating: 
Summary: Trying to hard
Review: I've been reading Hunter for years and this is the first time I've been disappointed by one of his books. There's just to much cute about the characters and what they say and do. I especially found Short and Speshnev to be below his usual standards. As a film critic Hunter should know better then to write about "B Movie" characters. Most appalling was his portrayal of Meyer Lansky. Meyer was a gangster, not some ones
wise old granddad. (Note to SH.. Lansky would never call anyone a "schmata" a rag, he'd call him a "gonif" which is a crook.)
It was a poor end for a great series.
Rating: 
Summary: A little dull and predictable
Review: Not Hunter's best work by far. It seemed to be a book with no purpose. The life of Earl Swagger didn't change much due to the actions taken in the book and you feel as though the whole book ought not to have happened at all. Disappointing.
Rating:
Summary: The law of diminishing returns
Review: Hunter squeezed another Earl story out of the limited timeline he'd constructed for himself, and this one feels contrived. There is still a good amount of enjoyable stuff. The set piece where Earl senses danger and avoids a trap has the excitement of the better efforts in the series. Some of the minor characters are well-drawn too, such as Roger the ineffectual pretty-boy Harvard man.
But I've had enough of the technical gun business, and another annoying aspect for me was the sloppiness in little things. Frankie talks one way when he's first introduced and then another later on. Another minor character starts as a Yale man, then later he's Harvard. And there was an awful lot of misspelling that the editors could/should have caught.
I ripped through it on a plane and then left it behind.
Rating: 
Summary: A good adventure thriller set in 1950s Cuba
Review: This is a good one. Besides Hunter's continuation of the Swagger family history, a plus in itself, it is also replete with historical and semi-historical material which brought back memories. In one incident, Gunter sort of "took a shot" at Papa Hemingway--made him out to be a drunken boor--and maybe he was, but I loved Hemingway's writing, and thought better of him. It reminded me a little of what Steinbeck did to the memory of Doc Ricketts, in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday. Ir made Steinbeck very unpopular with the people in the MOnterey area that I knew who knew and admired Ricketts.
But, all this is really beside the point: if you are writing about that period in Cuba, and you leave out Castro and Trujillo, you may as well have written about Long Island. He works them in nicely--especially Fidel.
So, this is another great novel from the mind of Stephen Hunter. It is well-written, as are they all, and entertaining, exciting, suspensefull, and makes you come back for more.
Very good. even if he does knock the Navy from time to time.
Joseph (Joe) Pierre, USN (Ret)
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I am a huge Stephen Hunter fan but 'Havana' was a big disappointment. It should have been called 'A Book-Too-Far'.
Rating:
Summary: Trying to hard
Review: I've been reading Hunter for years and this is the first time I've been disappointed by one of his books. There's just to much cute about the characters and what they say and do. I especially found Short and Speshnev to be below his usual standards. As a film critic Hunter should know better then to write about "B Movie" characters. Most appalling was his portrayal of Meyer Lansky. Meyer was a gangster, not some ones
wise old granddad. (Note to SH.. Lansky would never call anyone a "schmata" a rag, he'd call him a "gonif" which is a crook.)
It was a poor end for a great series.
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