King Bongo Unknown - 2003

From the publisher

Thomas Sanchez, the author of the epic Key West novel Mile Zero, returns to the tropics with King Bongo--a stunning story of desire and political danger set against the glamour, intrigue, and corruption of 1950s Havana. On New Year's Eve 1957, a bomb rips through Havana's famous Tropicana nightclub. King Bongo, a rogue Cuban American, tortured by a mysterious past and possessing a mythic musical talent, goes on the hunt for the culprits, and for his sister, known as the Panther, Cuba's most exotic showgirl, who disappeared in the explosion. Bongo navigates Havana's maze of colonial backstreets, red-light districts, Chinatown alleys, swank country clubs, and opulent gambling casinos, becoming ensnared in the morally complicated and often outrageous lives of underworld thugs and molls, of aging movie stars and their teenage mistresses, of idealistic shoeshine boys and political assassins. Ultimately, he faces his most dangerous challenges from the glamorous Mrs. Armstrong--an American socialite spinning a plot of erotic intrigue--and in a showdown with Humberto Zapata, a Machiavellian operative in Batista's murderous secret police. Sophisticated and riveting, a new noir novel, in a style--and evoking a world--Thomas Sanchez has masterfully made his own.