Comrades in Miami by
Jose Latour
pbk out January 06
(Orion)
at £10.99
This is not a crime book in the usual sense, though a few folk get killed
near the end. It is a sort of espionage tale, though mainly concerning a
few people caught up in the spy system. It was written by a Cuban now
living in Canada, who has a number of books to his credit, both in
English and Spanish.
A senior Cuban intelligence officer, Colonel Victoria Valiente,
specialises in applying psychological techniques to screen the suitability
of their agents and her success and dedication cause her to rise to be a
personal favourite of Castro. An ardent revolutionary, for many years she
never puts a foot wrong and it seems that her marriage to Pardo, a
computer genius in government service, only adds to her lustre.
Pardo often gets sent overseas to service equipment in Cuban embassies
etc, and becomes disillusioned with the seedy, corrupt Cuban regime. He
eventually infects Victoria with his views. He slowly siphons off over
two million dollars of government money which ends up in a Channel
Islands bank – a considerable part of the book is taken up with the
electronic techniques of doing this without arousing suspicion.
Eventually Victoria denounces him to the authorities, but this is part of
the plan and they end up in Florida, where she has been running a Cuban
spy network.
The denouement is tense and tortuous, but this is certainly a book where
you want to keep on reading, to see how it works out.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
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Comrades in Miami by
Jose Latour
