Havana Run (John Deal Novels)

Rating:
Summary: Great book, great series, great writer!
Review: Les Standiford's "Havana Run" lives up to the high standards set the initial seven John Deal novels.

Deal (the "last honest builder in South Florida") reluctantly accepts the promise of an extensive rebuilding project in post-Castro Cuba from the shady Antonio Fuentes. Fuentes represents a "consortium" and has a $1 million retainer.

Prior to departing, Deal is coerced by a Justice Department op to plant miniature listening devices throughout the island.

Once in Cuba, Deal sees he was lured there for a sinister purpose: to break an American prisoner out of a Castro jail...a man who holds secrets that many factions would kill to learn---others to keep them concealed.

But who is pulling the strings: underground freedom fighters, the consortium, the US government, double agents, Castro partisans?

From Miami to Key West to Cuba Deal discovers not everyone can be trusted and figuring out who is trustworthy is nearly impossible.

Les Standiford is the most underrated Florida mystery writer. "Havana Run" is part crime fiction, part spy thriller...filled with intrigue, realistic action, suspense, betrayal and an ending that will knock you down.

Top drawer reading!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting but unconvincing
Review: Since his father's suicide and manufactured evidence of his corruption, John Deal has been forced off the police force and struggled to recover his father's once-thriving construction business from the financial problems his father's death had created. When wealthy hispanic businessman Fuentes offers Deal a million dollars as a retainer and invites him to Havana, Deal initially resists. He doesn't believe in things being too good to be true--he can't afford the hidden costs. But when the government asks him to cooperate with Fuentes, he agrees to play along.

Once in Havana, life becomes complicated. In addition to the government, at least two groups seem to want Deal's cooperation. An adventure of chases through the jungle, into Ernest Hemmingway's old boat, and through the streets of Havana ensues. What Deal learns is that there are secrets within secrets and tha everything he had believed is a fabrication.

Author Les Standiford offers a well written and interesting adventure story. Despite the implausibility of much of the story, Standiford's adventure-telling draws the reader in. Deal is largely unsympathetic and emotionally uncompelling as his cynical nature refuses to let him believe anyone (probably wise since everyone has been lying to him). HAVANA RUN does raise a number of important questions--the role of the mob in post-Castro Cuba, the trigger-happy nature of both the Cuban and American militaries, and whether the U.S.'s current restrictions on contact with Cuba truly serve anyone's interest.

Rating:
Summary: How did I miss this one???
Review: Somehow I just picked this novel up last month. Do you read every Florida Keys Mystery/Action you can get? I do and I have a scale of favorites. Corcoran, Hall, and White in that order plus a few lesser lights. Of course in the well known writers' works the standard wicked crew, developers, pols and tee shirt moguls plus the mob have become a bit too wearing on the beleagured "conchs." Thus it is a pleasure to read the adventures of John Deal and his Dealco development corporation, dedicated to making a buck but not vast sums of bucks by doing condos right. (If there is any way to do them right.)

In Bone Key, Deal and sidekick fell into the Key West scene as potential developers of a "martello" tower centered resort. His inherited and endangered development corporation was just recovering from the suicide of his less environmentally dedicated father's suspicious "dealings."(Yep, puns appear now and then.) This novel continues the tale and expands upon it, bringing into the picture his father's early ties to Cuba and plans for post CAstro development.

Who these developers may be (off shore banks and all) their ties to on island dissidents and off island exiles and the U.S. Government's desires to snoop on everyone (gives new meaning to the U.S. Interest Section) is the heart of this book. Given current state of boat traffic between the Keys and Cuba,rumors, speculation over future development in Cuba and the general murkiness of ownership of those luxury villas popping up along island edges, there's more than a bit of reality here.

Then too, it's kind of fun to see a hero developer. Talk to anyone in the Keys and they will tell you that's kind of like the tooth fairy. It would be nice.

Finally, this novel reads a bit faster than Bone Key. I thought there was just a bit too much repetitious complication in that earlier one. (Read it during a long airport wait, so I might misjudge it a bit. It does give some background which helps here.)

Rating:
Summary: Skip the Run and the Read
Review: The latest in the series featuring John Deal finds him in Key West, Florida overseeing a construction project. Picking up where "Bone Key" left off, the project is moving forward and things are going so well, John has opened a satellite office in the area and is occasionally commuting to the home office in Miami. If it weren't for Isabella, his daughter who lives with his estranged wife Janice, he would ditch Miami and move to the Keys.

Then the rich Mr. Fuentes arrives in his small non-descript office in Key West. Mr. Fuentes has a proposition for John Deal. The days of Castro are numbered and the rebuilding of Cuba, especially the historical landmarks in Havana, will soon be underway. Mr. Fuentes wants John to follow his deceased father's footsteps back to Cuba and consult on the rebuilding. Mr. Fuentes brushes aside current political concerns and believes that once Castro departs this mortal coil, a tidal wave of money, especially American money, will wash over the island. John Deal would not only get a consulting fee now for making the trip and considering what needs to be done, he would stand to make a fortune once the actual work began underway. This could be the final break he needs to once again bring the construction company his father created, DealCO, all the way back to its preeminent status.

John Deal agrees to consider the scope of the work and soon arrives in Havana, Cuba aboard Mr. Fuentes opulent yacht. Like the crumbling structures that hide the past beauty of the city, the real reason Mr. Fuentes brought him to Cuba lies hidden beneath the surface. Slowly, it becomes apparent as John finds himself the target of gun wielding thugs and the center of a political mess in Cuba and at home. Survival, not money becomes paramount as John Deal struggles to escape the island alive.

This is not the normal John Deal series book that I have grown accustomed to reading over the years. Missing is the humor, the occasional witty comment, that served as additional background in the other novels of the series. In fact, the human element is all but lost in this novel that spends so much time in regards to family connections.

Instead, the reader is told that one should feel emotion over various things throughout the novel, but that emotional connection to the reader is never made. There is a certain distance to the writing, which is especially surprising considering some of the various personal events in John Deal's past that are covered. Considering the obvious storytelling possibilities, this lack of emotion is amazing and can't be discussed further without giving away major portions of the novel.

This book also hardly answers the many questions that it raises. One question is answered at the end, but most are left dangling in what appears to be nothing more than a setup for the next novel of the series. With so much unfinished business, it leaves this reader feeling just a bit cheated. Les Standiford has taken his readers off on a tangent and the question remains whether he will return them to the main highway or crash in a dead end.

Rating:
Summary: great suspense thriller
Review: Thirteen years ago, police officer John Deal learned that his father committed suicide. His face was so badly damaged that his son couldn't recognize him. The police find papers proving John was supplying his father with information that he used in his business dealings. Unable to demonstrate he was set up, the brass allowed him to retire. John took over Deal Co, the construction company his father ran into the ground.

In the present, Deal Co. is breaking even when Antonio Fuentes asks him to accompany him to Cuba. Fuentes represents a consortium who want to rebuild Cuba after Castro is gone and they want Deal to be their point man. Deal is about to turn him down when a government agent asks him to go along with Fuentes and in return they will give him proof that he was framed thirteen years ago. Deal goes to Cuba intending to play the spy but finds someone that has to be smuggled out of the country at any cost, making his deal with the government null & void.

Readers get an inside look at the Cuba of today in HAVANA RUN and although the country is in a holding pattern different forces are ready to take control once the present leader is gone. Les Standiford raises the bar of the suspense thriller in the latest installment of his John Deal series. Though one must wonder about a government that hides the truth that would exonerate someone, this fits right into the story line and Justice, American style. Readers will take to the protagonist right away because of the vulnerability that shines above this tough guy persona.

Harriet Klausner