Editor Reviews:

Product Description:

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.

Rating : - Very Entertaining
As someone with a mild curiosity about mob-related nonfiction, I picked up Havana Nocturne simply because it seemed like an interesting topic. I had little knowledge of T.J. English's writing or the role of the mob in Cuba beyond the pop culture portrayals. I was pleasantly surprised that English has put together an informative yet entertaining account of a very unique period in Cuban history.

This is no cliffhanger. The title of the book and basic history forewarn you that the Castro revolution was the end of American mob involvement in Cuba. English's descriptive narrative style, however, kept my attention as he tracks the rapid waxing and waning of mob power in an exotic locale that was all about gambling, sex and entertainment. The sophisticated distribution of power among the criminal bosses and the interplay of politics and money provide striking examples of a truly one-of-a-kind situation in history. It's pretty obvious how a compelling movie like The Godfather II was based upon the exploits of Meyer Lanksy and his cohorts.

When the end comes, it comes quickly, and I couldn't help but want more about the legacy of the Havana Mob beyond the summaries included at the end. Still, the story is fleshed out well with details much darker and sexier than I expected from a nonfiction work. To my relief, English doesn't delve into the overly dramatic morality schlock you normally see in crime writing. I will definitely give some of his other books a try after reading this.