By: Colin Harrison Publisher: Picador Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Picador Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 400 Publication Date: April 17, 2007 Release Date: April 17, 2007
Bill Wyeth is a rising real estate attorney living the lofty heights of success. Then a tragic accident claims everything he has: his family, his fortune, his career. But this is Manhattan, and Bill has much further to fall. His downward spiral lands him at the table of Allison Sparks, the dangerously alluring owner of a midtown steakhouse. She needs a personal favor of him--to engineer a midnight trade-off in a shady multimillion-dollar real estate deal. For a man with nothing left to lose, the set-up is too lucrative to refuse, and like Allison, too forbidden to resist. But her favor draws him deeper into a web of sex, deception, and murder--and to a secret place at the back of her restaurant, the Havana Room, where a man might find both evil and redemption. The Havana Room is a great New York thriller from a modern master of the genre.
Download Description: From the author of Afterburn, a major new thriller about a down-and-out lawyer who takes on a case that proves deadly.
A complete miss. I read this book after reading Afterburn, which was stellar. Harrison constructs atypical, unpredictable plot movements with a very literate style. Good character development, nice prose, and unexpected twists and plot development. Havana Room is a ridiculous, implausible, poorly executed story. Worst of all, Harrison relies on the very sloppy, lazy literary technique of keeping the reader in the dark about essential elements of the plot until it is revealed all at once by a single character (read: the author) explaining it all in one fell swoop with a big long monologue. I have written better material than this myself and I am in no way a writer in Harrison's league. I don't know if he had to produce this piece of drivel to pay his taxes or fulfill a book contract but I say with confidence that he is a fine writer as evidenced by Afterburn and the outstanding review that I just read of his newest novel, released in April of 2008. So.....read Afterburn and I will check out the new one but this.....is a waste of time.
Intriguing The characters interwining stories along with the secrets of the Havana Room makes this a compelling read. I throughly enjoyed it.
Wildly entertaining. "The Havana Room" features what I like to call an anonymous man -- successful, but not famously so; married to a wife who is pretty but not quite beautiful; rich but not a millionaire -- whose anonymity is shattered because of a tragic accident that leads to the death of his friend's son.
The death of this young boy causes his family's life to spiral downward, and he loses his job, his wife, his son, and his comfortable little existence. He escapes into a depressed funk.
Randomly, he enters a steakhouse one day. It is here where our story starts to spin.
Though he no longer practices law, the man, Bill Wyeth, is roped into helping with a real-estate deal. After the deal is made, Bill finds himself drawn to the man he helped, Jay Rainey, and ends up aiding him in a crime. The more Bill finds out about the deal, the more suspect it looks, and the more sinister Jay appears.
Colin Harrison is an absolute master at teasing his audience, sprinkling a little trail for them to follow, building suspense and anxiety to figure out the truth of the situation.
His prose is like bitter urban poetry. He completely exposes post-9/11 New York with sharp, accurate observations. Before Harrison gets to his story, he sits back and revels in his own prose ability, giving the city he lives in a light smack across the face.
Really the only flaw of this book is that, once Harrison points the way the story is actually going, it's obvious where it will end. It's hard not to be three or four steps ahead of our narrator, Bill. And the grand finale, which is played for awe and horror, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
Honestly, I wish the two revelations -- about Jay and his farm -- had not quite been so obvious. But it's hard to complain because this book is so addictively good leading up to it. You'll find yourself not wanting to put this book down, impatient to know what happens next.
Unlike others, I liked what happened in the Havana Room. It's not a cliche. It's absolutely nothing that you would expect -- an intriguing and creative stop-off in the book that makes for later fun.
While I admit I wish this book was as shrewd in the end as it was in the beginning, it doesn't detract from what was a really well-written and smart book. It took me quite a while to finally get around to reading Colin Harrison. But now, having read "The Havana Room," I won't be waiting long to read him again.
A terrifically entertaining and literary mystery.
Decent Literary Thriller I liked THE HAVANA ROOM overall, but I must admit it's not for everybody. If you're looking for a realistic plot or likable characters, this novel will probably let you down. I didn't find this book particularly suspenseful, and I must admit I found some of the plot developments completely unbelievable.
However, the prose of this novel is remarkably well crafted. Colin Harrison is without question a gifted writer. The narrator of THE HAVANA ROOM, a 40-year old lawyer who has hit bottom, ruminates constantly about aging, the meaning of love, and other important life issues. These ruminations are very interesting to read. I suspect many middle aged men will identify with the themes presented in this novel.
I don't recommend this book if you're looking for a fast-paced thriller. But if you're looking for a literary/thriller hybrid, this is one of the better ones out there.
HAVANA ROOM One of the best novels I have ever read! I could not put the book down! I stayed up nights until 2 am reading it. I did not want the book to end!
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