The second book in David C. Taylor’s transporting historical crime-fiction series
Michael Cassidy, a New York cop plagued by dreams that sometimes come true, escorts a prisoner accused of murder to Havana on the cusp of Fidel Castro’s successful revolution against the Batista dictatorship. After delivering the man to La Cabaña prison and rescuing his former lover—Dylan McCue, now a Russian KGB agent—from her scheduled execution, Cassidy returns to New York and retreats into the comforts of alcohol and sex.
The arrival of Fidel Castro in New York three months later complicates the cop’s life once more. Cassidy’s investigation of a young man’s murder in Central Park is interrupted when he is assigned to Castro’s protective detail.
Castro has many enemies. American mobsters who have been run out of Havana, businessmen who worry about their investments in Cuba, and members of Batista’s secret police all want him dead. Cassidy is already investigating one murder. Can he prevent another?
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“Keith Szarabajka delivers another stellar performance…Taylor’s writing is rich with underlying nuance. He invites readers to be a part of the story through their interpretation of those nuances, and Szarabajka does just that for listeners. From his subtle indications of frustration or amusement to his pitch-perfect array of accents, Szarabajka is completely in control. His husky voice fills the bar rooms with smoke and the mobsters with venom. This series is pure audio perfection. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
“Superb…Taylor’s masterly command of historical detail and his powerful delineations of characters both real and fictional should help put this second novel, like his first, into contention for an Edgar Award.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Building to a slam-bang finale involving an assassination attempt, $100,000 in purloined Mob money, and cameos from Meyer Lansky and other marquee mobsters, the novel sails smoothly forward, nicely combining romance, historical detail, and, yes, that delightfully gin-soaked atmosphere.”
— Booklist"[Like] a scene from the first Godfather film, but Taylor adds enough false leads, double-crosses, assassins taking down other assassins, and felonies compounded by the good guys to make it his own. Sturdy, studly historical cop drama.”
— Kirkus ReviewsBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
David C. Taylor was born and raised in New York City. He spent twenty years in Los Angeles writing for television and the movies. He has published short stories and magazine articles and produced an off-Broadway musical in New York.
Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.