Dancing To Almendra By Mayra Montero

Havana 1957. On the same day that the Mafia capo Umberto Anastasia is assassinated in a barber's chair in New York, a hippopotamus escapes from Havana Zoo. Joaquin Porrata is the young Cuban journalist assigned to cover the latter story but, told by a secretive zookeeper that he 'knows too much', he soon discovers that the two events are not as unconnected as they might initially seem. An ardent and thrilling tale of innocence lost, of Havana's secret one-time world of violence, fantastic characters and extravagant crimes, Dancing to 'Almendra' is a triumph of story-telling from one of Latin America's most impassioned and intoxicating voices.