The Cuban Affair

Starred review from July 3, 2017
Set in 2015 during the early days of the thaw between the U.S. and Cuba, this action-packed, relentlessly paced thriller from bestseller DeMille (The Quest) introduces Daniel “Mac” MacCormick, a 35-year-old army veteran wounded in Afghanistan and now living in Key West, Fla., as a charter boat captain. Crippled by debt—he has a $250,000 bank loan on his boat—and feeling existentially adrift, Mac agrees to participate in a covert mission to Cuba for a substantial sum. Financed by a faction of Cuban-Americans bent on freeing their ancestral home from Castro’s oppression and returning millions of dollars and property to their rightful owners, the job entails accompanying a beautiful woman to Havana and recovering a cache of money and documents hidden in a cave. But the plan is risky at best, and soon Mac is on the run with a woman who could be manipulating him. A line from the novel perfectly describes this page-turner: “Sex, money, and adventure. Does it get any better than that?” Agents: Jenn Joel and Sloan Harris, ICM Partners.

Starred review from October 30, 2017
DeMille’s new hard-bitten hero, Daniel “Mac” McCormick, narrates this breathless adventure set in 2015, when Mac was crippled by debt and working as the captain of a Key West deep-sea fishing charter boat. An ex-Army man with medals and scars from two tours in Afghanistan, Mac is tough, cynical, smart, and suffering from malaise, an attitude mix that reader Brick smoothly conveys from the start. Mac lets Miami lawyer Carlos Macia talk him into participating in a complicated plan to smuggle millions of dollars out of Cuba, with the promise of a hefty paycheck at the end. The caper is chancy, and adding to its potential perils is his smuggling companion, Sara Ortega, a mysterious beauty who may have a secret agenda. In presenting the plot’s set-up, reader Brick takes time to establish Mac’s hard-boiled outlook; his fondness for his cantankerous septuagenarian first mate, Jack Colby; and his increasing skepticism about the caper, especially Sara’s participation. Once their plane touches down in Havana and the plan immediately begins to unravel, Mac displays his Army-nurtured aptitude for improvisation and author and reader together establish the kind of feverish, nonstop action one expects from a world-class thriller. A Simon & Schuster hardcover.

Nelson DeMille has mastered nutrition-free fiction, and this title is another audio confection to enjoy while your mind is partly otherwise-occupied. Narrator Scott Brick is a great choice for this audiobook--the wise-guy edge to his voice matches the attitude of Mac, the main protagonist. The second protagonist is Sara, and, of course, she's beautiful, and, of course, she and Mac get together, and, of course, there's danger and a bit of sex. As Mac and Sara try to spirit 60 million dollars out of Cuba in Mac's boat, it's not particularly believable--but so what? The portrayal of Cuba is largely negative and simplistic, but the book, overall, is a harmless diversion. G.S.D. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine