Rating: 
Summary: Third Earl Swagger Novel is okay, but Not the Best of them
Review: After "Hot Springs" and especially after "Pale Horse Coming" I couldn't wait to get a look at the latest of the Earl Swagger novels, "Havana." Unfortunately though, Hunter just didn't deliver in this third installment. In the back of the book, Stephen Hunter acknowledges that A) he was struggling to write this next novel and B) the idea to send Earl to Havana was not his idea. Personally, I believe this shows through in places. At times it almost seemed that Earl didn't fit in with the plot, was kind of made to fit even. Yes, the gunfights and such persist. We even see Earl in the role of "sniper" (see Hunter's incredible book "Point of Impact" for a great sniper novel) but it's not enough to win over a tried and true Stephen Hunter fan. Hunter has done better. The good points though are the return of Frenchy Short, a great character from the first Earl novel, "Hot Springs." The setting for pre-Castro Cuba and the interesting historical twist of including Fidel as a key character are also well done. Unfortunately, Hunter seems to get too caught up with these other characters and misses the fact that it's our hero Earl that we've come to hear about.
Rating:
Summary: Please, let Earl rest in peace.
Review: Earl Swagger is dead. His death is described in one of Hunter's earlier, and much, much better books. Please, Stephen, let the poor guy rest with dignity.I am a big fan of Stephen Hunter's previous books. This one is definitely the worst in his impressive run, starting with "Dirty White Boys." The author really needs to find some fresh characters and stories, and not continue to rehash the same old. The book flowed well, but the main character seemed very uncomfortable in his own skin. Definitely not the Earl Swagger of the previous books, but a twisted carricature of himself, constantly wondering what the hell he was doing in that novel. Uncharacteristically of Hunter, the supporting characters are quite weak and undeveloped. Castro himself is portrayed as a babbling megalomaniac idiot, which, whatever you may think of him, is certainly not the case. Overall, the book was a dissapointment.
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: 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: Great story but Hunter needs to move on
Review: I have an idea for his next novel. How about an elite German Army sniper in the closing days of the Battle for Berlin who manages to hold off half the Red Army while succeeding in helping the real Adolf Hitler escape to South America? That would be one hell of a story!
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: 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 Captivating Adventure
Review: Stephen Hunter has a great knack for country attitudes, good shooting, complex stories and politics.
In "Havana" Hunter captures a moment in time when Castro is just emerging (the Yankees having failed to offer him a $500 signing bonus) and Batista is back in power with the help of the American mob.
Just as in "Hot Springs" where Hunter resurrected the great pre-Las Vegas center of gambling and prostitution (matched in that era only by Youngstown), here he reminds us that Havana in the early 1950s was a city of power seekers, tourist pleasures and American and Cuban mobster domination and corruption.
He weaves together a brilliant Soviet agent, Earl Swagger (hated by the Soviet system for his individuality and protagonist of almost half Hunter's novels), the CIA, the American mob, Fidel Castro and the Cuban secret police into a wonderfully complex and constantly intriguing story.
His characterizations of a young Castro are worth the entire book: "Speshnev looked hard at him and, try as he could, only saw a familiar type, thrown up by revolutions and wars the world over. An opportunist with a lazy streak, and also a violent one... No vision beyond the self, but a willingness to use the vernacular of the struggle for his own private careerism." (p. 101)
"He does carry on don't he? He reminds me of a movie star. They get famous too young and they never recover. They always think they're important." Earl Swagger on young Fidel (p 319)
Whether for fun or learning or both, this is a worthwhile novel.
Rating: 
Summary: The Sheriff goes to Havana
Review: The gist of the story is that Earl Swagger is tapped by the CIA to go to Cuba and assassinate an up and coming firebrand named Fidel Castro. We know that never happened, but Hunter weaves a skillful tale around historical fact and good speculative fiction. Stephen Hunter does a great job of recreating Cuba before the commies took over and describes the interwoven world of secret policemen, Russian Spies, American Spies and Italian gangsters. Earl has his struggles, but he is the moral force we came to know in HOT SPRINGS. While this book is not PALE HORSE COMING (how many books like that does a writer have inside of themselves), it is another great read from an extraordinarily gifted author. I have no idea why anyone would give this book less than five stars. Pick it up today.
Rating:
Summary: The genesis of Castro's Cuba
Review: The inordinately talented Stephen Hunter again resurrects his sharkskin tough, Marine Medal of Honor winning Arkansas state policeman Earl Swagger, in his latest novel, Havana. Swagger is hoodwinked into serving as the bodyguard for local congressman Harry Etheridge who is heading a governmental investigation in corrupt 1952 Cuba. Swagger, in reality, due to his extensive and decorated police and military background is recruited by CIA number two man in Havana, Walter "Frenchy" Short as an assassin. Short, of questionable moral character had been partnered with Swagger during his previous exploits in cleaning up the unbridled town of Hot Springs. His target is the brash, verbose, narcissistic young lawyer Fidel Castro. Other forces were operative in the unscrupulous Cuban government headed by Batista. American gangsters headed by Meyer Lansky were reaping in profits from gambling, drugs and prostitution and therefore at odds with Castro's revolutionary ideas. The Communist presence was also at work, lead by seasoned Jewish revolutionary Speshnev. He was assigned to nuture and coddle the inexperienced Castro and mold him until a worthwhile puppet for Moscow. Swagger, with CIA backing, was forced to act within the morass of varying dangerous factions whose goals were vastly different. Hunter with an appealing blend of fiction and historical fact creates a descriptive and intriguing story that whets the appetite for more adventures starring the Swagger family.
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