Rating: 
Summary: Osorio steals the book
Review: We start with a dead Russian body being fished out of the water by Cubans for the benefit of Moscow investigator Arkady Renko, who has been called in by the Russian Embassy to investigate the dead Russian's death and cause, etc. Through Renko we visit and smell Fidel Castro's exotic, erotic and decaying Havana and an assortment of Cuban characters, most of whom seem to speak Russian and are quite caustic to their former allies. Cruz scrambles the story several times and builds and changes hard-to-follow conspiracies that ends up with Cubans changing their stories, allegiances and support - all to confuse and throw Renko off his scent. There's also some sex between Renko and the black Cuban detective, which doesn't make sense, because she really dislikes Russians. The best find in this book is the interesting tapestry of Cuban life that Cruz describes, with Santeria, racism, forced ingenuity, brutality and a colorful city destined to continue to be one of the jewels of the New World.
Rating: 
Summary: Great characters & setting, weak plot
Review: The fourth Arkady Renko book (following Gorky Park, Polar Star, and Red Square), takes the dour Russian police detective to a struggling and tattered Havana. On the heels of his lover's accidental death, he receives a telegram warning him that an old friend posted to the Russian embassy in Havana is in danger. After paying for his own ticket and flying halfway around the world, he arrives in time to watch his friend's decomposing body being pulled from the bay. The story that ensues is an extremely convoluted thriller, more enjoyable for its portrait of modern Cuba than for its weak plot.Grim Renko is the ultimate fish out of water in a Cuba where Russians are despised as back-stabbing former allies and betrayers of the revolution. One the book's most enjoyable aspects is watching Renko poke around with virtually no resources at his disposal. With no authority, no Spanish, and only the most tenuous of allies, he starts looking into his friend's death, galvanized by an unprovoked attempt on his own life. As he negotiates a city struggling to exist under the US embargo without Russian aid, he discovers a civil society, government bureaucracy, and economy constantly on the brink of failure. Eventually he is helped by a female police officer who, in a society where everyone must run some kind of illegal scam to bring in enough money to live on, has idealistic and unshakable ideas about justice. Of course, their pairing up is as cheezy as it is inevitable, but that's a minor flaw compared to the confusing plot the characters are run through. As the book wears on, Renko starts stumbling into a rather massive and ridiculous conspiracy. It's a scheme totally disproportional to the fine nuances and detail that are so enjoyable elsewhere in the book, and its masterminds are shabby cardboard characters compared to the Cubans Smith so carefully constructs. So, read the book for its atmosphere of modern Cuba, populated by hustlers, sex workers, musicians, mechanics, Santeria priests, Abakua secret society members, veterans of wars in Angola and Ethiopia, and mouthy grandmothers who live in a realm where the socialist ideal is rapidly rusting, and boom-boom decadence of the West is capturing the hearts and minds.
Rating:
Summary: Still a Good Book
Review: I really think this series is this authors best story line and set of characters. When I read some of this other books, I just do not get into the story as much as I do with Arkady. He again creates this dark, brooding lead character that you believe in, even though it seems to be the central casting type for these type of parts. I was concerned that this book took this character, that I know so well, out of Russia - would the author be able to create that overall sense of foreboding that he does so well in Russia? I think so, at least he made the parts of Cuba that may resemble Russia stand out. Overall the story is a good one, with the normal relationship sub plots for Arkady. The mystery holds up to the end and the book has a decent pace. I do think it is not as good as the other three, he is trying to move the story along and that is the difficult part - - we all love aspects of the original Gorky Park and the further the author gets away from that book, the more he has to change to keep the stories somewhat fresh. I think this 4th book was the biggest step, the first three were very close to each other, almost additional chapters to the original work. It is a difficult balance and I think we will really not be able to tell if it is working until the 5th one of the series.
Rating: 
Summary: best Renko novel since Gorky Park
Review: Havana Bay is an excellent novel. Arkady is called down to Cuba to identify the corpse of KGB colonel Pribulda, his would-be executioner turned friend. I was a little torn up about Pribluda's death, because I always liked him. Arkady starts out in the beginning of the book in a bad way Irina, his wife and love, is also dead, of an allergic reation to a shot at a hospital. Irina's death has made life seem futile to Arkady. He attempts suicide, but ends up killing Rufo, who appears to be a hired thug and who has come into Arkady's room to kill Arkady. Later, Arkady pieces together the puzle of Pribluda's death, which is appropriately mixed with Cuban political intruige. I enjoyed Arkady's imaginary conversations with Pribluda and his total disregard for threats from menacing Cuban officials. One of the best things about the book is that, after the pain of Irina's death, Arkady has a chance to fall in love again.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointed, but I'd come back for more
Review: Like many, I was captivated by Gorky Park, which I read on it's first edition all those years ago. I waited for anxiously, and enjoyed, Polar Star. I thought Polar Star was a good read, but had along way to go to equal Gorky Park. Red Square did as good a job of capturing the chaos that is post Communist Russia as I thought possible. A truly stellar work. I bought this in hard cover thinking it would be an equal. It isn't. Renko is a much a derelict as Cuba itself. The story I thought drifted without the drive that made the others great/good. Still, this is a character that I enjoy and look forward to Martin Cruz Smith taking another trip with.
Rating: 
Summary: Stuck in a Rut
Review: Mr. Smith has a beautiful gift with the use of descriptions to paint mavelous pictures. His plot,at least in this book, takes a loooong time to take off and by that time I really didn't give a hoot about Havana or the Bay.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry. Tooooo slowwww.
Review: Martin Cruz Smith can write a compelling novel. He proved this with Gorky Park, which was a great novel (with the first appearance of archetypally gloomy Russian hero Arkady Renko) and a great movie (with a masterful performance by the late Lee Marvin as the prime villain). He has a far better than average command of writing, is capable of elegant, artistic prose. He has a fine eye and ear for description. All this said, Havana Bay simply doesn't do it for me. I labored through this novel from beginning to end. Too little happens, Arkady seems stuck in neutral, and there is little to zero narrative drive. Nothing COMPELLING about this story: some vague fretting about the mysterious death of a Russian spy-bureaucrat that we never learn much about or care about. What little action there is is too sporadic and seems unconnected. The whole business is just too poorly explained in general. Heavy on the steamy atmospherics and frustratingly static in terms of story and action. At the end (finaaaalllly!)I'd lost interest to the point that I didn't care who ended up dead, who did it, or even if Fidel himself was in the final act. You can do better than this turgid plotting, Mr. Smith. I'll be looking forward to your next Arkady Renko. Hint: keep him in something resembling animate motion.
Rating:
Summary: Well written atmospherics
Review: M. C. Smith is a good writer displaying a nice balance of description, dialogue, and deft plotting. This is the third book of his I've read and greatly enjoyed. We are just as puzzled as Moscow investigator Arkady Renko to find ourselves in Fidel Castro's Havana with a rotting body on our hands. Smith masterfully tightens the screws, scrambles the alignments of the characters, builds and shifts apparent conspiracies, and thoroughly triangulates poor Renko. The plot circles back to its start, once, twice. The silent maelstrom widens, with sudden spates of information or new characters, sucking Renko in and down among colorful people who suddenly change their spots. There's also a sparkle of romance with a Cuban detective, Osorio, but what really is her motive for consorting with a despised Russian? What is going on here? I certainly couldn't figure it out. As well, I do find it hard to anticipate Renko or know why he is doing something...but that keeps it interesting. A nit I still don't understand is why he long kept certain things about himself secret--like his wife--or how he knew when to happen to hide key items just in time: on what grounds is he so extraordinarily secretive in loose-living Havana? Smith's Havana has the authentic feel of a poor Latin American city, its sights and colors, except perhaps for just how persistently sweaty it must be for a Renko direct from wintry Moscow. It is a grimly retrograde environment peopled by failed socialists on the make, several large brutes, poverty amid faded spendor, and a stink of ingenious corruptions and make-do (irruptions of an alleged "Cuban Method" that smack of Carl Hiaasen's mordant humor). Renko exhibits more a Le Carre cynicism or gallows humor in this haunted society, and then as a hunted man. Smith has written an entertaining story containing many puzzling events. I enjoyed the ride more than the ending.
Rating:
Summary: M.C. Smith's superior writing talents bring Havana to life..
Review: Havana has never been so real as in the exquisite depiction - it brings the reader beyond the taste of vicarious enjoyment & into the true feast of sensory experience this city offers. Bringing Arkady Renko into this environs while maintaining the essential nature of his established character is truly a creative coup. Anyone who loves Smith's writing style and is willing to put aside a need to confine him to previous parameters of Renko's story lines will find this a highly enjoyable offering.
Rating:
Summary: Agreed - depends on what you're expecting
Review: Excellent book about Cuba, evocative, detailed; good thriller. A little disappointed by conclusion...
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