The Havana Room, Colin Harrison
The Havana Room, Colin Harrison
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

The Havana Room
A Novel

Author: Colin Harrison

Narrator: Henry Leyva

Abridged: 5 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/01/2004


Synopsis

From the author of Afterburn, a major new thriller about a down-and-out lawyer who takes on a case that proves deadly.

The Havana Room is the tale of a man who falls from the heights of power and wealth in New York, and finds himself in a dangerous and potentially lethal state of affairs.

Bill Wyeth is a successful real estate attorney in his late thirties with a wife and son, who, by the merest chance, loses everything: family, job, status. Unmoored and alone, Wyeth drifts toward the city's darker corners. Restoration seems unlikely, redemption impossible. Wyeth finds himself in an old-time Manhattan steakhouse and is intrigued by the manager, Allison Sparks—sexy, complicated, and independent in all ways. She also controls access to a private bar. This is the Havana Room, and what goes on in there, he's told, is secret. Wyeth agrees to help Alison's friend, Jay Rainey, in concluding a last-minute midnight real estate transaction. As soon as he sees the players and the paperwork, he knows something is wrong. Within hours, Wyeth finds himself tangled in Rainey's peculiar obsessions, which involve a Chilean businessman who feels he's been swindled, an old farmer frozen dead to a bulldozer, an outrageous black owner of a downtown hiphop club, and a fourteen-year-old English girl. Only Rainey knows the connections among these people, which are revealed when Wyeth is finally admitted to the Havana Room—where the survival of its inhabitants is most uncertain.

About Colin Harrison

Colin Harrison is the author of the novels You Belong to Me, Break and Enter, Bodies Electric, Manhattan Nocturne, Afterburn, The Havana Room, The Finder, and Risk. He serves as the editor in chief at Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. A graduate of Haverford College and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is married to the writer Kathryn Harrison and lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Jamesport, Long Island.

About Henry Leyva

Henry Leyva's audiobook credits include reading Colin Harrison's The Havana Room, Michael Palmer's Fatal, Lawrence Block's Killing Castro, and John Grisham's The Testament as well as works from popular authors such as Nicholas Sparks and Phyllis Naylor.  Leyva has appeared in numerous stage and screen productions.  His film and television work includes roles on One Life to Live, Romancing America, The Digital Café, The Interrogation, and The Windigo.  He has also performed in a host of off-Broadway productions, including In the Heights, Love Suicide, and Guanabaco.  He has also performed in voiceovers for commercials, including those for HSBC, Claritin, and the Daily News. He lives in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Glenn

“Colin Harrison is trying to do for New York what Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy have done for Los Angeles: map the sinister underbelly of the city, the nexus of greed and lust and ambition that metastasizes there and its dark spawn of larceny and murder.” So wrote Michiko Kakutani in her New Yor......more

Goodreads review by Carol

*****4.5 Stars***** Great storyteller! I've read this author in the past, but I had forgotten just how much I loved his novels. I plan to find more Colin Harrison books in 2019 but, after reading this one, I won't be eating Chinese Puffer Fish anytime soon.......more

Goodreads review by Stacey

The book was not what I expected. But right from the start, because this noir mystery was set in New York City, with the machismo factor set to high, I knew Donald Trump would worm his way onto these pages. And there he appears on page 121, when author Harrison shoehorns him into the near present da......more

Goodreads review by Maya

I loved this book because of how different it is. It has a masculine edge (imagine a hazy cigar room in a steakhouse, the dark feel of a Manhattan noir) without being one-note, and I appreciated the philosophical echoes throughout. The result is a page-turner that's lyrical and moody: Bonfire of the......more

I loved this book and could not put it down. For me, the plot was not too far fetched to enjoy at all - it was thrilling! I thought the genius of it was that the tiniest little detail, coincidence or (with hindsight) mistake can change a persons life forever. It tells a colourful story and warns you......more


Quotes

“A gripping thriller by a master storyteller, tautly written, and ingeniously plotted. The Havana Room has the raw, scathing commentary of The Bonfire of the Vanities and the pacing of The Firm all rolled into one terrific read. This is Colin Harrison's best book yet.” —Vince Flynn, author of Executive Power

The Havana Room demonstrates that Colin Harrison is a wonderful storyteller.” —Audio File

“Henry Leyva captures Wyeth's emotions beautifully, particularly the despair he feels when, at one point, he finds himself virtually homeless. Leyva is especially effective with the various ethnic voices that populate the book.” —Audio File