A classic detective story that explores the last years of Hemingway’s life, evoking both Cuba and this giant of American letters with enormous skill and wit. When the bones of a man murdered forty years earlier surface on the Havana estate of Ernest Hemingway, writer and ex-cop Mario Conde is called in to investigate. As he unearths the truth of the night of 3 October 1958, he is forced to come to terms with a very different side to his former literary hero.Padura Fuentes switches between Conde’s world and that of Hemingway’s Cuba four decades earlier; in the heat and rum haze, the two seem slowly to merge. In an extraordinary journey into the past and into the personality of one of the twentieth centurys most enigmatic and powerful writers, a masterful and totally convincing portrait emerges, as well as a riveting mystery that will keep you in suspense until the very final pages.

About the AuthorLeonardo Padura Fuentes is one of Cuba’s most acclaimed writers. He was born in 1955, not far from Hemingway’s Cuban home and has written extensively as a critic and essayist, as well as novelist. A winner of the international Dashiell Hammett prize, his books include a series of detective novels featuring Mario Conde.Reviewsintelligent, moving and delightful…It makes you think and feel. What more can you ask for?…a lovely little novel. * * The Scotsman * *Fact and fiction are seamlessly merged… * * Buzz * *. . . the gently melancholic tone, beautifully rendered here by John King, subverts any literal reading. * * The Guardian * *a well-paced and beautifully characterised detective story. * * The Observer * *a superb piece of crime literature…a thrilling and engaging mystery. * * City Life * *beautifully recreates a complicated and interesting man. * * Event Magazine * *Book InformationISBN 9781841955414Author Leonardo Padura FuentesFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Canongate BooksPublisher Canongate BooksWeight(grams) 164gDimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 15mm