Havana Nocturne

This well-researched account will please history and entertainment fans, as well as those interested in the Mafia. Through news accounts, biographies, and interviews with survivors, it chronicles mobster Meyer Lansky's almost-successful attempt to turn Cuba into the capital of the Mafia's empire. Lansky's dream, born in the 1920s, didn't take root until the early 1950s, and then Castro's revolution ended the Cosa Nostra's grip on the country. In this fascinating story, listeners encounter mobsters, like Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Albert Anastasia, politicians, like the Kennedys, and movie stars, like Frank Sinatra, George Raft, and Ava Gardner. Mel Foster's reading is competent, though somewhat wooden, and his pronunciation of difficult names and places is excellent. Still, it's disappointing that he reads comments by the characters rather than acting them--as he does so well in fiction. A.L.H. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

February 4, 2008
Old Havana mambos on the brink of the abyss in this chronicle of Cuba in the decades before the 1959 revolution. True-crime writer English (Paddy Whacked
) presents an empire-building saga in which the “Havana Mob” of American gangsters, led by visionary financier Meyer Lansky, controlled Cuba. Empowered by permissive gambling laws and payoffs to dictator Fulgencio Batista, the Mafia poured millions into posh hotels, casinos and nightclubs, skimmed huge profits and sought to make Havana its financial headquarters. The results: exuberant nightlife, a giddy Afro-Cuban jazz scene, sordid backroom sex shows and the occasional grisly gangland hit. English revels in purple prose (“the island seethed like a bitch with a low-grade fever”) and decadent details, including an orgy with Frank Sinatra and a bevy of prostitutes that was interrupted by autograph-seeking Girl Scouts and a nun. But his estimate of the importance of the Havana mob and its “showdown” with Castro's puritanical rebels seems inflated. More supplicant than suzerain to Batista, the mob focused on internecine feuds and paid little attention to the brewing insurrection. The casinos, hotels and nightclubs were all the mob owned—but they sure threw one hell of a party. Photos.