- Hardcover: 690 pages
- Publisher: Thorndike Press; Large type edition edition (August 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0754099997
- ISBN-13: 978-0754099994
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14.6 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 862 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Harrison's status as the noir poet of New York crime fiction (Afterburn; Manhattan Nocturne) will surely be enhanced by his latest thriller-featuring, among other pleasures, the graphic description of several new and unusual ways to die. What goes on in the by-invitation-only Havana Room of a midtown steakhouse is certainly bizarre-but no odder than what happens in a Long Island potato field when a Chilean wine maker decides to expand his empire. Caught in the middle are two most unlikely heroes: Bill Wyeth, a real estate lawyer whose career and marriage are destroyed by a terrible accident involving a child, and Jay Rainey, a hulking, strangely sympathetic con artist. Linking these two is a touching and complicated woman, Allison Sparks, who manages the steakhouse but longs for more. "She seemed full of humor and fury and sexual need. She arranged people, fixed problems, came to decisions." Although Wyeth and Rainey drive the action, it's Sparks who sets the moral tone of the book. Meanwhile, the lush, alluring steakhouse and its public and private pleasures are the perfect metaphor for a postapocalyptic New York. "It did not matter if you polluted your lungs or liver or gut with the good stuff being served, because a man or a woman's life was itself just a short meal at the table, so to speak, and one had an obligation to live well and live now, to dine heartily by the logic of the flesh." Despite occasional digressions into arcane real estate law and Chinese cuisine, Harrison's storytelling hums and his prose shimmers all the way through this fascinating adventure.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Harrison's latest intelligent thriller does not offer quite as compelling a plot as his last one, the acclaimed Afterburn (1999); however, his businessman-turned-desperado characters are never less than riveting, bringing us an up-to-date bulletin straight from the heart of a battered New York City. Corporate lawyer Bill Wyeth is jettisoned from his pampered upper-middle-class lifestyle by a tragic accident. Arriving home unexpectedly, he gives his son's sleepy guest a glass of milk inadvertently laced with peanut sauce. The boy, severely allergic, goes into shock and dies. The boy's wealthy, grieving father engineers Bill's destruction, and he loses his job, home, and family. Desperate for some kind of structure, Bill becomes a regular at a long-established steakhouse, entering the orbit of beautiful and austere restaurant manager Allison Sparks. She gives him entree to the Havana Room, the scene of backroom deals and strange goings-on, and introduces him to Jay Rainey, a hugely charismatic and secretive businessman who draws Bill into a dangerous venture. Suddenly, both men are being stalked by hip-hop-loving thugs and a cultured but equally ruthless entrepreneur. The complex plot, however, merely seems like the framework for Harrison's ultra-modern morality tale about the costs of self-preservation and the deep pressures of being human. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
BEGIN ON THE NIGHT that my old life ended. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
BEGIN ON THE NIGHT that my old life ended. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complex thriller,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)
Great writer, I was intrigued from page 1. Lots of twists and turns. Complex plot, check it out.
4.0 out of 5 stars
God Noir Fiction,
By
This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)
The Havana Room by Colin Harrison is a good example of what might be called Fiction Noir. The main character is one Bill Wyeth, formerly a big shot lawyer who has just everything including his family.Depressed, Wyeth hangs out at a local steakhouse that features a bar-room called the "Havana Room." The strange and mysterious events that center around the Havana Room make for thrilling, suspenseful reading.
1.0 out of 5 stars
Ick,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Havana Room (Hardcover)
I'd give this book no stars if I could. I liked nothing about it -- all of the characters are unpleasant and poorly drawn. They don't act like real people or speak like real people, and the things that happen to them aren't things that would happen in real life. The "style" is off-putting as well. I mean, should you really notice that a book has a "style" when you're reading it? Usually, I don't like to speculate on the marketablity of a book (I like to think that writers aren't writing merely for market) but in this case that's the only way to put anything positive in this review. I imagine this book might appeal to a small segment of middle-aged male readers, but it's not bright, brave or new enough to appeal to younger, savvier readers and it's got nothing in it at all that would appeal to women.
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