Havana Twist

Rating:
Summary: Great book--previous reviewer is WRONG!
Review: The reader who says Havana Twist's view of Cuba is wrong must have spent his time in the tourist parts! Because I just got back from there, and I think Matera was dead on. The tourist parts are like the descriptions in the one-star review here on Amazon, but the rest of the city, which is most of it, is NOT. As soon as a couple of us left the beaten path--which isn't that common since cabs won't take you off it and there's nothing there for tourists--Cuba was just like it was described in this book! And we saw quite a few of those plastic cars, btw, that supposedly you don't see in Cuba according to the negative reviewer. Also flew in on a rickety Russian airplane, which again previous reviewer scoffs at. I'd say Matera has definitely been there because she described it just the way saw it. In fact, I could pretty much dispute from what I saw myself everything in the one-star review! I lent this book to some other people who took the trip with us, and they all felt the author really caught the feeling of the place, which to give the author credit, she does not present as all bleak. She's got a good eye for outdoor detail, and all that kind of lovliness. (I notice the reviewer who said the book doesn't descibe Cuba correctly does not mention the book's descriptions of Mexico City. Maybe because more people have been there and can judge for themselves? People who visit Cuba, I notice, can really have chips on their shoulders about any criticism of it. Keep that in mind.)(And no, I'm not a right-winger, I'm a good liberal--but an open-eyed one!) Plus, the book is FUNNY! I think there are a lot of earnest Cuba-is-perfect types who just don't have a sense of humor and aren't willing to see any flaws in the place. That's the only thing I can think of to explain why someone wouldn't enjoy such a well-written and well-plotted and really sharp and funny book! Anyway, I just had to stick up for the book because it really captured so much--unless you stick to the tourist areas, where all the Canadians are (you sure won't find them walking through the regular neighborhoods, which is why Willa thought she'd stick out--like we did!). Havana Twist is a very fast, funny, engrossing read!

Rating:
Summary: Fast, Furious, Funny Thriller
Review: Thirty-something, Santa Cruz lawyer/sleuth Willa Jansson's lefty mother, June, who still lives in the radical '60s, went to Cuba with a group of senior peaceniks and failed to return with the rest of the group and nobody knows what happened to her

Able to barely get by in Spanish, she goes to Cuba via Mexico, where she picks up Pesos to spend so she can get around the prohibition of spending U.S. Dollars, which the U.S. calls trading with the enemy.

In Cuba she meets up with a couple Americans, who seem like spy types, but claim to be reporters, and then they disappear. She continues looking as discretely as possible, making friends with a local street urchin, enemies with a Chinese soldier and she finds herself at odds with different departments of the Cuban Police and she eventually gets tossed out of the country.

Six months go by before some information finally comes to light about her mother, so she goes back with San Francisco Homicide Lieutenant Don Surgelato, an old flame she'd like to get together with again.

Now Willa has to stay a jump ahead of both the Cuban and American governments and a ruthless killer as she desperately hunts for her mother in this high-stakes, nail-biting, heart-racing thriller. And what did happen to June? Ah, you'll have to read the book to find out.

Rating:
Summary: Top flight mystery
Review: This book has a tight plot with many twists and turns. I really enjoyed the main character's company throughout. Her wry asides are pointed and funny. The love interests add tension. I was glad not to hear directly from the main character's mother, whom I find incredibly annoying. I enjoyed reading about Cuba and Mexico and thought the amount of space given to describe the two countries was just right.

I don't know if the plot is believable. I simply accepted it. The author convinced me to go along.

After reading books that are packed with extra junk just to make them longer so that the publisher can sell them for higher prices (consider Diane Mott Davidson's "Killer Pancake," full of repetition and recipes for disgusting low fat creations), I am pleased to see that Matera has not fallen for that ploy. Congratulations to her for writing a book that is only as long as it needs to be.

Rating:
Summary: Boring political screed
Review: This book is a poorly plotted, poorly characterized political screed. Lia Matera seems far more intent on trashing Cuba than she does on writing a novel. There is page after page of political venom that doesn't even sound very accurate. The character and her "quaint" mother are supposed to be "lefties" but the novel reads like a right wing puff piece. The plot had a deus ex machina ending and a not very interesting one at that. Too bad she didn't spend more time on the plotting and characterization. It was hard to get interested in either.

Rating:
Summary: matera's best since 'prior convictions'
Review: Willa Jansson is back in a mystery that is Lia Matera's best since 'Prior Convictions'. Havana Twist had me on the edge of my seat. Willa's mother, the original bleeding heart for socialism, disappears while on a tour of Cuba. Willa tries to retrace her footsteps and turns up a few clues that seem promising, but seem to lead no where. Months go by, and nothing pans out, until a Willa's former (much former!) love interest, Don Surgelato, SFPD lieutenant of homicide (and once on the receiving end of one of Willa's mother's very vocal, very public diatribes) picks up a tiny clue. The case escalates, Willa and Don eventually travel back to Cuba, only to return empty-handed. Fans of Matera's Willa Jansson series will love this quick-paced, dramatic story set against the backdrop of socialist Cuba. Like all of Matera's books, the novel is rich with political and social flavors, but without the world-weary cynicism of Matera's yuppie lawyer Laura DiPalma. Willa Jansson manages to maintain an innocent idealism, a belief in happy endings, even when all the evidence would indicate the ending has already come. Highly recommended, and if you've never read any of Matera's books, this is a great one to start with.

Rating:
Summary: No cigar
Review: Written in the first person, at times "Havana Twist" reads more like an armchair travel book than a mystery novel. The Willa Jansson character is no ass-kicking feminist detective. Instead she leaves the hard work to her cop ex-boyfriend. He tries to solve the case while she worries about what to wear and if she'll get back together with him. When a man is shot dead beside her, she worries about a pinpoint powder burn on her thumb.

It paints the usual doom and gloom picture of Cuba, which I found to be extremely exaggerated (Are there really no dogs in Cuba??). I can only assume this was either for fictional impact or for political reasons; either way, this is not a book that anyone with a regard for accuracy will enjoy. There is certainly no attempt to balance or justify the constant depiction of Cuba as a sinister country, filled with paranoia and corruption, where you can trust no one. In fact the evil Chinese military and Hispanic villains lend the book racist undertones.

I found the style a bit self-conscious and culturally specific. Her cultural reference points were solidly two decades behind (an Andy Gibb look-alike??!!) and her new-age yuppie lifestyle does not contrast well with an attempt at a gritty third-world murder story.

To the book's credit, I did make it through to the end (although the plot was so tedious and cumbersome that I lost interest several times). It is constructed like the recollection of a bad dream, which makes the whole book lack believability. The book has its characters suddenly coming across deserted tunnels, meeting dark mysterious figures, suffering from mother anxiety, falling down shafts, running for airplanes.... Freud would have a field day. As the supporting characters are murdered around her, our heroine shows little remorse. I was waiting for a twist like the title suggested but it never came.