In modern-day Havana, the remnants of the glamorous past are everywhere--the old hotel-casinos, vintage American cars, and flickering neon signs speak of a bygone era that is widely familiar and often romanticized, but little understood. In Havana Nocturne, T. J. English offers a riveting, multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution, and international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana and the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution.
As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 1950s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the American Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government and in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion.
Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels and casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women, and gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government and its foreign partners--an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory.
Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana--including interviews with the era's key survivors--Havana Nocturne takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob--featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr. and Albert Anastasia--and Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana--and how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the Cuban Revolution.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Maybe the mob wasn't so bad after all...:
And, then there was my neighbor Mrs. Brown who sat mesmerized before her television-they had antennas back then- rejoicing that Castro put bad folks against the wall and shot them..until she discovered he was a dogless communist and reversed her opinion. English frames the story left out of your No Child Left Behind histories suggesting maybe the Mafia, that J. Edgar Hoover said did not exist, was not involved in prostitution and drugs in Cuba and that gambling was the real mother lode. This revelation... more info
I never knew revolutions could be so boring.:
The author went into excruciating and often pointless details about every two-bit mobster in who ever set foot in Cuba, while telling us nearly nothing about the larger picture.
Caribbean Nights:
`Havana Nocturne' by T.J. English In his latest installment, `Havana Nocturne', T.J. English, author of `The Westies' brings us the true story of the Havana Mob. This is the tale of the underworlds influence on Cuba, Havana specifically, in the pre-revolutionary days. You're introduced to all the main players: Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro, et al. The level of corruption at all levels, be it social or political, is examined thoroughly and connections between the... more info
Living history:
Reads like the very best fiction! If this book didn't contain some bawdy passages, I'd recommend it for high school history classes! Most reviewers have covered the Hollywood/mob names involved in this book but little has been noted of Fidel Castro as a young, rabble-rousing college student and how the Cuban & US governments, as well as the mob, grossly mis-judged this man's zeal & appeal. (I was particularly struck by the fact Fidel & Che began with only a couple of dozen followers.)... more info
