In this solid spin-off from Cuban author Pedro’s Havana Quartet, police detective Mario Conde investigates the 1989 murder of 73-year-old Pedro Cuang, a dry cleaner, in Havana’s Chinatown. Fans of the Havana Quartet will welcome Conde’s return. Publishers Weekly

How nice it is to watch a high-powered talent at work on a form that too often relies on flat-footed prose. Booklist

Padura on his very best form. Once again, we have Padura’a irresistible combination of quirky storytelling and a vivid evocation of the city of Havana –the translation by Peter Bush does full justice to the novel, which was inspired by the author’s work as a journalist when investigating the history of Havana’s Barrio Chino. ELN Barry Forshaw

The intensive, richly detailed narrative is at once a portrait of Daniel’s Cuban upbringing, a meditation on anti-Semitism, and an intriguing account of the painting. Highly recommended.   Library Journal

This is a major novel and a testament to Padura’s stature as a writer. Booklist

‘Leon Trotsky's brutal assassination by a Stalinist agent in Mexico in August 1940 might seem an unlikely wellspring for fiction, but it has inspired more than one novelist in recent years. Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna," published in 2009, centered on an aspiring writer, a Mexican-American, who is shown joining Trotsky's...

2009's bumper crop of crime fiction. 'Havana Fever by Leonardo Padura (Bitter Lemon Press) Mario Conde has retired from the Havana police department and is buying and selling old books. He and a friend come across a gold mine to book lovers, a cache of more than 5,000 old books,...

'Cuban police detective Mario "The Count " Conde still feels "solidarity with writers, crazy people, and drunkards, " but his melancholy seems to be seeping even deeper into his soul in this fourth installment of Padura's Havana Quartet. The existential angst that grips the Count is only aggravated by concern...

'Havana Blue (1991) [English 2007], is the first of the Cuban author's Four Seasons Quartet set in Havana in 1989 -- called the Havana Quartet in the English edition. Police lieutenant Mario Conde, known as the Count, investigates the disappearance of an up-and-coming government trade official, who also happens to...