"Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a boy who wanted to be a writer.." (p. 111) His heroes were Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, Julio Cortazar, and JD Salinger.

At 35, Mario Conde, "the Count" laments the state of his life... a policeman who dreams of being a writer. How did he wind up in this life? He can't understand it. He and his friends had such dreams...
This is the heart of the story...the murder of a teacher at Conde's high school ("Pre-Uni) brings about reminisces of his time there. What could he and his friends be if they still had their time again?

"Nobody can imagine what night-time is like for a policeman. Nobody can know what ghosts visit him, what hot flushes assail him, the hell where he simmers on a slow burner, or where fierce flames shoot around him. The act of closing your eyes can be a cruel challenge, conjuring up troublesome figures from the past, who never leave your memory, who return, night after night, with the tireless regularity of a pendulum. Decisions, mistakes, acts of arrogance, and even the frailties of generosity return like irredeemable sins to haunt a conscience marked by each petty act of infamy committed in the world of the infamous." p. 26

This, and a new love brings about an existential crisis for the Count...
"I dream I could dream other happy dreams, build something, possess something, hand something on, receive and create something: write. But it's the futile delirium of a man who feeds on what has been destroyed, That is why a policeman's loneliness is the most fearful loneliness: it accompanies his ghosts, sorrows, guile..." p. 28

This book, as well as the previous one in the series, "Havana Blue", is not a typical detective novel
The crime is a McGuffin, a backdrop that helps move the story of the Count's sorrowful tale of lost love, regrets, and dying dreams. As he reflects, "writing is very difficult, that writing is something almost sacred and even painful", and that being a policeman has sapped all his emotional energy. Finally, there is this to contemplate...the Count's rumination on death:
"There is nothing,...the mere idea that man's time on earth is a brief interlude between two voids has been humanity's greatest source of anguish since it became conscious of its existence. That's why I can't get accustomed to death and it always surprises and terrifies me: it's a warning that mine is getting closer." p. 233 Creating something will be a way of leaving a legacy for the future. Would he ever write again? Will he ever become a writer? "He thought it alarming how easily heaven and earth could combine to crush a man like a sandwich about to be chomped painfully". p. 285

5 stars and looking forward to the next book in the series, "Havana Red". The translator is British and reads well. ( )

En los infernales días de la primavera cubana en que llegan los vientos calientes del sur, coincidiendo con la Cuaresma, al teniente Mario Conde que acaba de conocer a Karina, una mujer bella y deslumbrante aficionada al jazz y al saxo, le encargan una delicada investigación. Una joven profesora de química del mismo preuniversitario donde años atrás estudió Conde ha aparecido asesinada en su apartamento, en el que aparecen además restos de marihuana. Así al investigar la vida de la profesora, de impoluto expediente académico y político, Conde entra en un mundo de descomposición, donde el arribismo, el tráfico de influencias, el consumo de drogas y el fraude revelan el lado oscuro de la sociedad cubana contemporánea. Paralelamente, el policía, enamorado de la bella e inesperada mujer, vive días de gloria sin imaginar el demoledor desenlace de esa historia de amor.

Yes, unless.
"Havana Gold" is not the first of Leonardo Paduro's books I have read and enjoyed. Yet, a warning is appropriate. Due in large part to machismo, the genre, and the book being 20 years old, a reader must be willing to wade through (or ignore) a good deal of the book's sexism. If that is within your tolerances, "Havana Gold" is a great read. The series' protagonist detective (yes, it's part of a series), Mario Conde, is a likable but, at this point in his life, world weary character. The book is full of numerous, but enjoyable, diversions into, for example, culinary topics. Some characters are somewhat stereotypical but, with your expectations suitably adjusted, it's a very enjoyable read. ( )

Mostly well-written noirish detective novel, though more on the misogynist side of the genre than I care for. More interesting for the descriptions of life in Havana in the 1980s than for the story itself. ( )

Mario Conde is a police Lieutenant in Havana, where, in his experience, people live lives “that rarely managed to be normal.” In this fourth book in the series, Conde is investigating the murder of a popular female teacher at his former school, with a drug connection involved. Conde is more depressed than usual – despite, or because of, a new romance. He’s drinking more, fighting with a fellow cop, generally in the midst of an existential crisis – “a man alone.”

Poetic writer that Leonardo Padura is, he is very good at making you see things a little differently. A suspect wears “a black leather jacket that was an insult to the climate.” Life in Havana is tough – tougher still on Conde. Padura shows it on every page. ( )